_.  .  .     "7^ 

BS  2555  .D8  1906 
Dubose,  William  Porcher, 

1836-1918. 
The  gospol  in  the  Gospeli 


THE   GOSPEL 

IN 

THE   GOSPELS 


THE   GOSPEL 

IN 

THE    GOSPELS 


William  Porcher  DuBose,  m.a.,  s.t.d. 

AUTHOR    OF    "the  SOTERIOLOGY    OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT' 

"the     ECUMENICAL      COXJNCILS  " ;     PROFESSOR     OF 

EXEGESIS  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  SOUTH 


LONGMANS,   GREEN,  AND   CO. 

91  AND  93  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

LONDON  AND  BOMBAY 

1906 


Copyright,  1906 

BY 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 


All  rights  reserved 


The  Plimpton  Press  Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


SILAS   McBEE 

True  Friend 

AND 

Faithful  Critic 


PREFACE 

The  title  of  the  present  volume  is  intended  to  in- 
dicate that,  while  it  aims  to  be  an  exposition  of  the 
whole  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  it  does  not  purpose  to 
be  a  whole  or  final  exposition  of  that  Gospel.  It  looks 
forward  definitely  to  a  further  and  fuller  expression 
of  it.  We  have  here  to  do  with  the  Gospel,  not  in  its 
developed  utterance  as  that  of  the  New  Testament  or 
of  the  Church,  but  only  so  far  as  it  is  contained  in  our 
canonical  Gospels  or  can  by  ourselves  be  deduced  from 
them.  My  own  position  is  that,  while  the  Gospel  as 
an  act  or  fact  is  complete  in  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  the 
rationale  of  its  operation  in  human  salvation  is  best 
interpreted  and  stated  by  St.  Paul.  My  true  objective 
point  has  therefore  been  the  completer  construction 
of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Paul,  to  be  treated  in  a 
volume  to  follow  the  present  one.  That  the  epistles 
of  St.  Paul  are  an  interpretation  only,  and  not  a  trans- 
formation nor  even  an  essential  modification,  of  the 
Gospel  of  our  Lord  is  —  next  to  the  hope  of  casting  a 
single  new  ray  of  light  upon  the  nature  of  the  Gospel 
itself  —  the  point  which  I  have  most  at  heart  to  prove 
in  the  end. 

Indeed,  in  opposition  to  what  is  claimed  in  high 
quarters  to  be  the  well-nigh  acknowledged  conclusion 


viii  Preface 

of  present  criticism,  my  own  finn  conviction  is  that 
the  variant  conceptions  of  the  Gospel  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, so  far  from  being  different  gospels,  are  con- 
sistent and  mutually  completive  aspects  of  the  one 
and  only  Gospel.  In  proportion  as  we  conceive  the 
Gospel  of  God  in  its  entirety  and  in  its  immensity,  in 
just  that  degree  do  all  scriptural,  as  well  as  all  truly 
Christian  and  catholic,  statements  of  it,  no  matter  how 
partial  and  seemingly  contradictory  in  themselves, 
fall  into  their  proper  places  and  serve  to  magnify  the 
greatness  and  harmony  of  the  whole.  If  the  Gospel 
is  divine  at  all,  it  is  the  divinest  fact  of  the  universe, 
the  final  cause  of  creation,  the  end  for  which  all  else 
exists.  Mistake  any  one  fragment  or  aspect  of  it  for 
the  whole,  and  all  the  other  fragments  and  aspects  will 
be  involved  in  confused  and  hopeless  contention  with 
it  for  the  usurped  position.  Let  the  whole  stand  out 
for  itself  in  its  complete  proportions,  and  every  part 
falls  of  itself  into  its  proper  place,  and  is  confirmed 
and  supported  in  it  by  every  other  part. 

On  the  other  hand,  however  necessary  it  is  for  us  to 
know  the  whole  Gospel  in  order  to  know  any  part,  it 
is  equally  necessary  if  we  would  know  the  whole  that 
we  shall  not  ignore  or  neglect  any  one  or  more  of  the 
parts.  Besides  other  grievous  consequences,  it  is  only 
as  we  do  full  justice  to  the  claims  of  every  least  frag- 
ment of  the  Gospel,  that  we  can  guard  legitimately  or 
effectively  against  the  fatal  withdrawals  from  the  unity 
of  Christianity  of  the  parts  that  are  denied  rightful 
expression  within  it.  Moved  by  these  considerations, 
I  look  forward  to  an  entrance  into  the  full  mind  of  the 


Preface  ix 

New  Testament  by  way  of  a  comprehensive  comparison 
of  all  its  diverse  points  of  view  and  variant  expressions 
of  the  Gospel. 

Not  only  so,  but  in  this  volume  itself,  which  is 
but  part  of  the  proposed  plan,  I  have  recognized  the 
fact  that  even  within  the  narrower  limits  of  the  Gospels 
which  give  us  our  record  of  the  Gospel,  there  are  not 
only  possible  but  actual  diverse  impressions  of  what 
the  Gospel  is;  and  that  not  only  is  full  justice  due  to 
each  such  impression,  taken  by  itself  and  for  its  own 
sake,  but  that  the  very  fullest  justice  to  each  is  the  only 
way  of  arriving  at  the  truth  of  all,  or  at  the  truth  of  the 
whole  of  which  they  are  the  complementary  and  neces- 
sary parts.  The  one  great  lesson  that  must  forerun 
and  make  ready  the  Christian  unity  of  the  future  is 
this:  that  contraries  do  not  necessarily  contradict,  nor 
need  opposites  always  oppose.  What  we  want  is  not 
to  surrender  or  abolish  our  differences,  but  to  unite 
and  compose  them.  We  need  the  truth  of  every  va- 
riant opinion  and  the  light  from  every  opposite  point 
of  view.  The  least  fragment  is  right  in  so  far  as  it 
stands  for  a  part  of  the  truth.  It  is  wrong  only  when, 
as  so  often,  it  elevates  into  a  ground  of  division  from 
the  other  fragments  just  that  which  in  reality  fits  it  to 
unite  with  and  supplement  them. 

WTiat  has  been  said  may  indicate  at  least  the  spirit 
and  temper  in  which  the  study  before  us  is  sought  to 
be  conducted.  I  speak  here,  of  course,  only  in  general- 
ities; the  concrete  application  or  use  of  the  principles 
enunciated  must  be  found  and  judged  in  the  book 
itself. 


X  Preface 

As  a  matter  of  form  rather  than  of  substance,  I  feel 
that  there  will  be  a  question  as  to  the  success  with 
which  the  promise  of  method  or  procedure  has  been 
carried  out  in  the  volume  before  us.  The  matter  is 
treated  in  the  following  order:  (1)  the  Gospel  of  the 
Common  Humanity,  (2)  the  Gospel  of  the  Work,  and 
(3)  the  Gospel  of  the  Person  of  our  Lord.  And  each 
of  these  is  to  be  considered,  as  far  as  possible,  by  itself 
and  independently  of  the  others.  There  are  those  who 
hold  the  first  of  these  and  not  the  other  two,  or  the  first 
two  and  not  the  third  —  at  least  in  the  full  sense  in 
which  we  think  Christianity  includes  them  all.  And 
we  were  under  obligation  to  do  full  justice  to  the  point 
of  view  of  all.  If  I  have  succeeded  but  imperfectly 
in  doing  this,  if  I  have  at  times,  contrary  to  promise, 
run  the  lower  position  up  into  the  higher,  or  anticipated 
the  higher  in  the  lower,  it  is  at  least  a  question  where 
the  responsibility  lies.  It  may  be  that  what  I  myself 
believe  to  be,  not  three  gospels,  but  three  aspects  or 
stages  of  one  and  the  same  Gospel,  may  indeed  be  so. 
And  it  may  be  that  they  themselves  do,  of  themselves 
and  in  spite  of  us,  so  run  up  together  into  one,  that  it 
is  impossible  for  us,  however  honest  we  may  be  in  the 
effort  to  do  justice  to  each  by  itself,  to  keep  them  apart; 
so  predetermined  are  they,  and  determined,  to  find 
each  its  own  meaning  and  fulfilment,  not  in  the  sep- 
arate truth  of  each,  but  in  the  united  and  common 
truth  of  all. 

So  let  us  agree  to  disagree,  if  conscientiously  we  must, 
in  all  our  manifold  differences;  and,  bringing  all  our 
differences  together,  let  us  see  if  they  are  not  wiser 


Preface  xi 

than  we,  and  if  they  cannot  and  will  not  of  themselves 
find  agreement  in  a  unity  that  is  higher  and  vaster 
than  we. 

W.  P.  DuBosE 
Sewanee,  St.  Luke's  Day,  1905 


TABLE  OF   CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface        vii 

Introduction 1 

PART  FIRST 
THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  EARTHLY  LIFE 

OR 

THE  COMMON  HUMANITY 

PAGE 

I.     The  Impression  of  the  Earthly  Life  of  Jesus    .      .  15 

II.     The  Growth  and  Preparation  of  Jesus 28 

III.  The  Divine  Sonship  of  Humanity 42 

IV.  The  Son  of  Man 61 

V.     The  Kingdom  of  God 63 

VI.     The  Authority  of  Jesus 74 

VII.     The  Blessedness  of  Jesus 86 

VIII.    The  Beatitudes 97 

IX.    The  Beatitudes  —  Continued 109 

X.     The  Death  of  Jesus 119 

PART  SECOND 
THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  WORK 

OR 

THE  RESURRECTION 

PAGE 

XI.    The  Saviour  from  Sin 131 

XII.     Sin  and  its  Treatment 142 

XIII.  The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus ^      ...  154 

XIV.  The  True  Baptism  and  Baptizer 166 

XV.     The  Resurrection 180 

xiii 


xiv  Table  of  Contents 

PART  THIRD 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  PERSON 

OR 

THE  INCARNATION 

PAGE 

XVI.    The  Problem  of  the  Person 199 

XVII.     The  Mystery  of  the  Birth 210 

XVIII.     Ideal  Pre-existence 221 

XIX.    The  Gospel  in  St.  John 234 

XX.    The  Logos 248 

XXI.     The  Incarnation    .      .      .      „ 260 

XXII.     The  Trinity 274 


INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 

The  question  of  the  present  is,  and  we  may  safely 
assume  that  more  and  more  the  question  of  the  future 
is  going  to  be  —  What  is  Christianity  ?  There  was 
probably  never  a  time  when  more,  and  a  more  real, 
interest  was  felt  in  the  truth  of  Christ  and  Christianity. 
There  was  certainly  never  a  time  when  so  many  and  so 
conflicting  conceptions  existed  as  to  the  meaning  of 
Christ  and  Christianity. 

When  the  necessity  was  first  laid  upon  Christianity 
to  define  itself,  the  process  by  which  it  did  so  was  one 
of  gradual  and  progressive  but  strict  and  thorough- 
going exclusion.  Not  only  was  nothing  permitted  the 
name  which  contradicted  the  nature,  but  nothing  that 
fell  short  at  any  point  of  the  totality  of  the  truth  of 
Christianity,  as  Christianity  understood  itself.  It  was 
not  only  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  —  it  was 
the  whole  truth  or  nothing,  the  highest  or  none.  Wliat- 
ever  may  be  said  of  the  spirit  or  temper  in  which  to  too 
great  an  extent  this  process  of  exclusion  was  carried 
out  to  the  bitter  end,  from  no  point  of  view  can  we  with 
propriety  deprecate  the  result  of  it.  God  may  have 
made  the  wrath  of  man  as  well  as  his  zeal  and  devotion 
to  praise  Him,  but  humanly  speaking  no  other  spirit 
or  temper,  and  no  other  method,  could  have  effected 
the  working  out  to  its  logical  conclusion  and  expression 

S 


4  Introduction 

the  principle  or  truth  implicitly  contained  in  Chris- 
tianity. 

Unquestionably  truth  is  one,  and  only  error  is  mani- 
fold. Truth  is  one  and  is  a  whole,  and  not  seldom  we 
can  say  that  that  which  is  less  than  the  truth  is  as  un- 
true as  that  which  is  contrary  to  it.  But,  for  all  that, 
there  may  be  a  time  when  for  the  truth's  sake  a  very 
different  temper,  and  a  very  different  and  even  an 
opposite  method,  may  be  most  proper  and  most  useful 
in  dealing  with  it.  I  propose  —  with  what  right  or 
propriety  only  the  result  can  determine  —  to  treat 
the  sadly  vexed  question  of  Christianity  by  a  process 
the  reverse  of  that  which  was  necessary  in  the  begin- 
ning, by  a  process  of  inclusion  rather  than  of  exclusion. 
So  far  from  saying  that  only  that  is  true  which  is  the 
whole  truth,  I  bring  forward  the  complementary  and 
not  contradictory  fact  that  that  which  has  in  it  any 
part  of  the  truth  is  so  far  true.  I  hold  that  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  so  true  and  so  living  in  every  part 
that  he  who  truly  possesses  and  truly  uses  any  broken 
fragment  of  it  may  find  in  that  fragment  something  — 
just  so  much  —  of  gospel  for  his  soul  and  of  salvation 
for  his  life.  In  testing  and  illustrating  this  fact,  if  it 
be  such,  it  will  not  be  necessary  for  us  to  examine  each 
one  of  the  parts  into  which  Christianity  is  broken  up 
in  these  days.  There  are  a  few  stages  or  degrees  of 
faith  in  Christ  and  Christianity  in  one  or  other  of  which 
every  phase  worth  considering  is  contained  and  under 
which  it  may  be  sufficiently  considered  for  our  purpose. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  many  a  profoundly  re- 
ligious —  and    shall    we    not    say    Christian  .'*  —  soul, 


Introduction  5 

including  now  some  of  the  greatest  upon  earth,  whose 
faith  in  Jesus  may  be  expressed  somewhat  as  follows: 
They  will  not  undertake  to  say  anything  of  our  Lord, 
theirs  as  well  as  ours,  before  His  appearance  by  birth 
in  the  world  or  after  His  departure  by  death  from  it. 
On  such  points  as  these  they  are  at  the  best,  or  at  the 
most,  agnostic.  But  between  these  two  points  of  birth 
and  death,  in  the  earthly  life  lived  in  common  with  us 
all,  in  the  simple  fact  that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  man 
He  was  and  lived  the  life  He  lived,  they  find  as  much 
of  gospel  and  of  salvation  as,  they  think,  humanity 
can  or  humanity  ought  to  receive  on  this  earth.  What 
or  how  much  that  truly  is,  it  shall  be  our  first  task  care- 
fully and  sympathetically  to  examine  and  measure. 
Let  us  call  this  gospel,  or  so  much  of  the  Gospel  as 
this,  the  gospel  of  the  earthly  Ufe,  or  of  the  common 
humanity,  of  our  Lord. 

In  the  second  place,  in  reading  the  Gospels  and  try- 
ing to  understand  them  according  to  their  intention,  it 
cannot  escape  the  attention  of  most  of  us  that,  however 
essentially  and  completely  human  we  see  the  life  of 
Jesus  to  be,  still  we  cannot  but  also  see  that  as  human 
it  transcends  the  ordinarily  possible  limits  of  the  human. 
There  is  no  one  of  the  Gospels,  there  was  no  Gospel 
before  the  Gospels,  which  does  not  end  necessarily, 
which  does  not  from  the  beginning  mean  to  end,  in  the 
resurrection.  But  it  is  not  only  that;  —  in  our  Lord's 
own  clear  consciousness,  in  the  unquestioning  con- 
cession on  the  part  of  all  the  records,  of  His  personal 
sinlessness,  we  have  a  fact  which  as  much  transcends 
the  powers  and  limits  of  all  other  earthly  life  as  His 


6  Introduction 

resurrection  does.  The  Gospel  from  the  beginniag 
was  not  at  all  that  Jesus  most  perfectly  represented 
our  common  nature  or  illustrated  our  human  life,  but 
that  He  brought  with  Him  something  into  our  nature 
and  life  which  was  not  there  before,  and  raised  them 
into  something  which  was  not  themselves  or  their  own, 
and  to  which  they  could  attain  only  in  and  through 
Him.  What  that  was  was  expressed  in  the  Christian 
consciousness  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  human,  but  the 
divine-human,  conqueror  and  destroyer  of  sin  and  of 
death.  Let  us  call  this  second  phase  or  stage  of  the 
Gospel  the  gospel  of  the  resurrection. 

In  the  third  place,  however  sincerely  and  genuinely 
human  we  may  regard  the  life  and  life-work  of  Jesus, 
when  once  we  have  recognized  in  His  accomplishment 
or  attainment  as  man  that  which  transcends  human 
accomplishment  or  attainment  —  however  it  may  be 
in  the  line  of  man's  higher  nature  and  destiny  —  we 
have  raised  inevitably  a  further  question.  How  does 
this  man  break  through  or  pass  beyond  the  possibil- 
ities of  universal  human  nature  as  it  is .''  How  does 
that  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  become  in  Him  more 
than  flesh  ?  The  immediate  answer  was  and  is :  The 
work  wrought  in  humanity  through  the  life  in  it  of 
Jesus  Christ  was  no  mere  act  of  humanity,  however 
exceptional.  It  was  a  work  wrought  by  God  in  hu- 
manity. If,  on  the  one  side,  it  was  humanity  fulfilling 
or  completing  itself  in  God,  it  was  only  so  because,  on 
the  other  side,  it  was  equally  and  primarily  God  ful- 
filling and  completing  humanity  in  Himself.  How 
then  was  the  so  unique  or  exceptional  personality  of 


Introduction  7 

Jesus  to  be  accounted  for  or  explained?  Was  He 
only  a  human  individual  exceptionally  blessed  or 
graced  ?  Or,  while  perfect  man,  was  He,  just  because 
perfect  man,  something  more  than  man  ?  Perfection 
is  no  mark  of  our  common  humanity,  and  needs  a  very 
high  accounting  for.  So  from  the  beginning  begins 
a  questioning  which  Christianity  answers  for  itself  in 
the  gospel  of  the  Incarnation. 

There  is  no  form  of  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  true  enough 
to  be  called  a  gospel  or  vital  enough  to  be  a  salvation 
which,  measured  by  its  own  self-limitation,  may  not 
be  classed  under  one  or  other  of  these  several  "gospels," 
or  phases  or  stages  of  the  one  Gospel.  I  claim  for 
each  that,  if  it  be  real  and  vital  and  true  so  far  as  it 
goes,  it  is,  so  far  as  it  goes,  a  gospel,  and  brings  in  it 
just  so  much  of  salvation. 

Our  interest  in  these  days  in  so  far  undertaking  an 
advocacy  of  partial  truths  of  the  Gospel  is  no,  true  or 
false,  sympathy  with  partial  truth,  but  interest  in  the 
truth  itself,  whole  and  perfect.  The  fact  of  which  we 
are  not  yet  fully  aware,  and  gainst  which  we  have  not 
yet  sufficiently  guarded,  is  this:  that  the  so-called  whole 
of  truth  is  quite  as  apt  to  ignore  or  pervert  the  parts, 
as  the  parts  are  to  be  blind  to  the  other  parts  and  to 
the  whole.  So  true  is  this,  that  it  is  a  common  fact 
that  in  larger  and  more  catholic  forms  of  Christianity 
not  merely  aspects  but  important  truths  and  even 
living  powers  of  the  Gospel  are  so  lost  to  sight  and  use 
that  we  may  have  to  go  outside  to  find  them  at  all, 
perchance  in  some  fragmentary  sect  which  has  been 
driven  outside  by  its  overpowering  sense  of  the  im- 


8  Introduction 

portance  or  necessity  of  knowing  and  using  them.  It 
is  no  weak  concession  then,  or  condescending  charity, 
that  ought  to  lead  us  to  do  full  justice  to  what  we  con- 
sider mutilated  or  incomplete  conceptions  of  Chris- 
tianity. We  ought  to  go  to  them  in  humility,  to  learn 
of  them  sides  and  uses  of  the  truth  which  it  may  well 
be  they  understand  better  than  ourselves.  So  I  go, 
for  example,  to  the  gospel  of  only  the  earthly  life  and 
the  common  humanity  of  our  Lord  to  learn  many  a 
lesson  and  catch  many  a  vision  and  inspiration  of  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  which  I  am  sure  is  lost  to  those 
of  us  who  in  the  higher  ignore  the  details  of  the  so- 
called  lower  side  of  that  divinely  human  life. 

We  are  to  study  the  Gospel  as  it  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Gospels.  And  there  is  a  threefold  view  of  the  Gospels 
somewhat  corresponding  to  the  three  stages  of  the 
Gospel  which  we  have  been  considering. 

The  first  and  main  function  of  at  least  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  would  seem  to  have  been  purely  reportorial. 
By  far  the  larger  part  of  them  is  pure  record.  They 
are  reports,  without  note  or  comment,  of  our  Lord's 
appearance  or  appearances,  where  He  went,  what  He 
said  and  did.  Never  were  there  writings  in  which 
there  was  so  little  of  the  writers,  so  clear  and  uncoloured 
an  impression  of  their  subject.  But  this  is  not  abso- 
lutely or  entirely  so.  Before  our  Gospels  attained 
their  present  form  there  had  been  no  little  reflection 
upon  the  whole  earthly  appearance,  and  no  little  inter- 
pretation of  the  words,  the  work,  and  the  person  of 
Him  who  had  left  so  deep  a  mark  upon  the  world. 


Introduction  9 

Now  the  time  has  passed  when  men  are  able  to  ques- 
tion the  historical  personality  or  identity  of  the  man 
Christ  Jesus.  And  the  time  has  passed  too  when  they 
can  depreciate  the  uniqueness  and  permanence,  not 
to  say  finality,  of  His  impression  upon  human  history 
and  human  destiny.  No  less  is  the  time  past  when 
our  Gospels  can  be  resisted  or  rejected  as  in  the  main 
truthful  and  true  reports  of  how  Jesus  appeared  and 
what  He  said  and  did  in  His  life  on  earth.  But  there 
are  men,  among  the  greatest,  and  scholars  the  most 
learned,  the  most  conscientious,  the  most  devout,  who, 
while  able  to  accept  so  much  of  the  Gospels  as  is  of 
pure  record,  find  themselves  unable  to  receive  what 
they  conceive  to  be  the  results  and  additions  of  later 
reflection  upon  and  later  human  interpretation  of  the 
actual  facts  of  the  Gospel. 

No  one  can  deny  that  it  is  legitimate  for  a  properly 
equipped  criticism  —  by  which  I  mean  a  criticism 
competent  to  judge  of  spiritual  as  well  as  natural  facts 
and  phenomena  —  to  apply  the  strictest  historical  tests 
to  the  historical  facts  of  Christianity.  Making  the  best, 
which  means  also  the  most  critical,  use  of  their  mate- 
rials, profound  and  devout  students  construct  out  of  the 
records  as  we  have  them  the  truest,  completest,  and 
most  self-consistent  conception  they  can  of  the  person 
of  the  great  founder  of  Christianity.  In  doing  this  they 
pass  by  or  reject  those  elements  which  seem  to  them 
inconsistent  or  incongruous,  as  not  belonging  to  the 
objective  fact  to  be  reported  but  originating  in  the  sub- 
jective impression  and  interpretation  of  the  reporters,  or 
of  later  believers  generally.     Such  a  mode  of  treatment 


10  Introduction 

is  not  only  not  to  be  condemned,  but  it  is  not  to  be 
avoided.  But  it  will  be  a  long  time  before  a  critical 
acumen  sufficiently  true  and  adequate,  spiritual  enough 
as  well  as  scientific  and  philosophical  enough,  will  be 
generally  developed  to  give  us  permanent  results  on 
this  line.  Meantime  each  succeeding  and  temporarily 
successful  such  attempt  will  be  subjected  to  the  tests 
of  time  and  ever-enlarging  experience,  and  will  survive 
or  perish  according  to  its  truth  or  falsity.  Still  we 
shall  never  attain  to  the  larger  and  truer  criticism  of 
the  future  except  as  we  are  trained  in  the  cruder  and 
confessedly  still  imperfect  criticism  of  the  present. 
And  it  is  only  through  the  growth  and  discipline  of 
the  critical  faculty  and  function,  of  the  powers  of  dis- 
crimination and  judgment,  that  we  can  be  educated 
to  a  higher  understanding,  appreciation,  and  enjoyment 
of  the  highest  truth.  In  the  first  stage,  therefore,  of 
our  study  of  the  Gospel  I  shall  follow,  as  best  I  may,  in 
the  track  of  the  critics.  I  shall  endeavour  to  admit 
nothing  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  and  as  of  the  Gospel 
which  the  best  present  criticism  will  not  admit  as 
pure  record,  as  being  of  the  objective  truth  of  which 
they  are  the  truthful  reporters. 

We  have  recognized  the  fact  that  beside  the  bare 
record  or  report  of  objective  fact  which  constitutes  the 
bulk  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  they  all  more  or  less 
abundantly  contain  matter  that  may  or  may  not  be 
objectively  true  also,  but  that  is  the  subjective  con- 
ception and  interpretation  of  the  objective  facts  on  the 
part  of  the  writers,  or  of  the  Church  which  they  repre- 
sent.    This  Christian  or  Church  interpretation  takes 


Introduction  1 1 

two  directions  and  assumes  two  forms.  It  is  first  an 
interpretation  of  what  we  call  "  the  work  "  of  our  Lord, 
meaning  by  that  the  purpose  and  result  of  His  whole 
human  life  —  as,  for  example,  atoning,  redeeming, 
new-creating,  etc.  It  is  often,  of  course,  difficult  to 
separate  between  pure  record  and  subjective  inter- 
pretation, inextricably  intermixed  as  they  are.  As  an 
instance,  the  account  of  the  intimate  connection  be- 
tween the  successive  ministries  of  John  the  Baptist  and 
Jesus  is  doubtless  largely  simple  report  of  the  facts. 
It  is  common  to  all  the  Gospels  and  seems  to  have  been 
from  the  first  the  starting  point  of  the  public  life  and 
of  all  the  stories  of  Jesus.  Yet  I  think  we  shall  see 
that  in  the  form  which  the  narrative  has  uniformly 
assumed  there  has  been  already  embodied,  in  the  con- 
trast between  John  and  Jesus,  and  more  especially  in 
the  significance  of  their  respective  baptisms,  a  state- 
ment and  interpretation  of  the  whole  work  of  Jesus 
than  which  nothing  could  be  more  comprehensive  or 
exact.  With  regard  to  all  subsequent  reflection  and 
interpretation  of  the  life  and  work  of  Jesus  it  must  be 
at  least  admitted  that  it  is  separable  in  thought  from 
the  objectively  true  facts  which  it  undertakes  to  explain. 
At  the  same  time  it  has  itself  to  be  understood  and 
accounted  for.  We  have  seen  that  the  ultimate  and 
complete  form  assumed  by  reflection  upon  and  ex- 
planation of  the  life-work  of  Jesus  Christ  is  to  be  found 
in  what  I  have  called  the  second  phase  of  the  Gospel, 
the  gospel  of  the  resurrection :  Jesus  Christ  —  the  con- 
queror of  sin  and  destroyer  of  death,  the  author  and 
finisher  of  holiness,  of  righteousness,  of  eternal  life. 


12  Introduction 

The  other  direction  taken  by  Christian  reflection 
has  to  do  with  not  the  work  but  the  person  of  our  Lord. 
But  it  was  not  the  less  inevitable,  and  has  equal  claim 
to  validity.  Admit  the  nature  of  the  work,  and  you 
cannot  escape  or  avoid  the  question  of  the  person  of 
the  worker.  There  may  be  doubt  as  to  whether  or  to 
what  extent  this  question  is  raised  or  answered  in  the 
Synoptic  Gospels.  Whether  or  no  what  we  call  the 
Gospel  of  the  Infancy  is  at  all  part  of  the  record,  or  at 
any  rate  of  the  primitive  or  original  record,  this  at  least 
is  certain  about  it.  It  did  not  belong  to  the  very  earliest 
form  of  either  oral  or  written  gospel,  which  began,  as 
in  St.  Mark,  with  the  public  life,  and  knows,  or  at  least 
includes,  as  yet  nothing  of  the  previous  private  history 
of  Jesus.  When  it  is  later  included,  it  may  indeed  be 
so  as  fuller  record  of  facts,  to  fill  out  a  completer  nar- 
rative from  more  perfect  information.  But  unques- 
tionably there  was  a  further  motive  for  its  introduction. 
The  question  was  up  of  the  mystery  of  the  person  of 
the  Lord.  It  is  not  answered  in  the  Gospel  of  the  In- 
fancy it  is  true.  In  all  the  stories  of  the  birth  there  is 
nothing  which  affirms  or  necessarily  postulates  a  pre- 
vious personal  existence.  But  at  least  the  line  of 
reflection  and  interpretation  is  entered  upon  which 
finds  no  possible  or  satisfactory  close  until  it  completes 
and  expresses  itself  in  the  Prologue  of  St.  John,  —  that 
is  to  say,  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Incarnation. 


PART  FIRST 
THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  EARTHLY  LIFE 

OR 

THE    COMMON    HUMANITY 


THE    IMPRESSION    OF    THE    EARTHLY 
LIFE    OF    JESUS 

We  are,  in  this  part  of  our  work,  to  study  the  Gospel 
upon  the  lower  plane  of  the  common  humanity  which 
our  Lord  shared  with  ourselves.  From  the  records 
of  which  we  are  to  make  use  we  exclude  not  only  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  but  the  Gospel  of  the  Birth  and  Infancy 
and  whatever  other  portions  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
may  reasonably  be  supposed  to  belong  to  a  later  stage 
of  gospel  representation.  Confining  ourselves  then 
as  nearly  as  we  may  to  the  primitive  gospel  of  pure 
record,  we  are  prepared  to  make  to  criticism  the  fol- 
lowing admissions: 

In  the  first  place,  the  historical  appearance  of  Jesus 
Christ,  taken  as  a  whole,  was  distinctly  and  completely 
a  human  appearance.  He  made  a  great,  a  boundless 
claim  upon  human  faith  and  allegiance,  but  it  was  not 
a  claim  which  He  Himself  based  upon  any  essential 
personal  difference  between  Himself  and  the  common 
or  universal  humanity.  He  did  not  demand  allegiance 
upon  the  ground  of  His  being  more  than  man,  but 
solely  upon  the  ground  of  what  He  was  as  man.  He 
nowhere  in  His  lifetime  asserts,  or  was  understood  by 
those  who  stood  nearest  Him  to  assert,  His  divine 

15 


16         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

personality.  The  highest  claim  He  admits  is  that  in 
response  to  Peter's  confession:  Thou  art  the  Christ, 
or  Thou  art  the  Christ  of  God,  or  —  in  the  fullest  form 
reported  —  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living 
God.  These  were  all  alike  well  understood  Messianic 
expressions.  The  Messiah  was  to  be  in  a  very  high 
sense  the  representative  and  expression  of  God's  pres- 
ence upon  earth,  but  in  no  sense,  as  yet,  which  implied 
his  own  personal  deity.  Indeed  the  passive  form 
and  signification  of  the  word  Messiah  or  Anointed  One 
emphasized  the  fact  that  the  essence  of  Messiahship 
was  humanity  indwelt  and  sanctified  by  Deity.  This 
is  not  at  all  to  deny  that  there  was  a  higher  claim  in- 
volved in  our  Lord's  personality.  But  the  claim  did 
not  appear,  was  not  asserted,  in  His  earthly  life.  The 
claim  of  divinity  was  to  rest  solely  upon  what  He  was 
and  accomplished  in  humanity,  and  it  waited  upon 
that  consummation  to  assert  itself.  Meanwhile,  Jesus' 
whole  appearance  was,  as  we  have  said,  distinctively 
a  human  one,  —  a  man  indeed  always  with  God,  and 
with  whom  God  always  was,  but  still  always,  in  His 
highest  knowledge,  in  His  most  mysterious  powers,  a 
man.  Even  after  His  resut-rection  He  is  still  to  St. 
Peter  "Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  man  approved  unto  you 
of  God  by  mighty  works  which  God  did  by  Him  in  the 
midst  of  you." 

Upon  what  grounds  in  His  lifetime  did  the  Apostles 
accept  our  Lord's  Messiahship  ?  Not,  certainly,  upon 
any  which  had  been  anticipated  or  expected  as  signs  of 
the  Messiah.  Not  chiefly,  I  think  we  may  say,  upon 
the  ground  of  His  possession  and  exercise  of  mysterious 


Earthly  Life  of  Jesus  17 

powers.  To  the  mind  of  His  time  He  Himself  had  to 
distinguish  those  powers  from  those  of  Beelzebub  by  an 
appeal  to  their  opposite  quality  or  character.  He  depre- 
cated, and  trusted  not  Himself  to,  a  faith  that  rested  only 
on  miracles.  I  think  we  may  say  that  what  He  was 
really  believed  on  for  was  —  Himself,  what  He  was  as 
man.  It  was  His  divinity  indeed,  but  a  divinity  mani- 
fested or  visible  to  them  only  in  the  quality  and  charac- 
ter of  His  humanity,  in  the  perfection  of  His  human 
holiness,  in  the  spiritual  power  of  His  human  life.  Why 
did  they  cling  to  Him  through  every  trial  of  their  faith  ? 
To  whom  else,  having  even  imperfectly  known  Him, 
could  they  go  ?  To  them  He  had  the  words,  already 
to  them  He  was  The  Word,  of  eternal  life.  That 
was  His  permanent  credential,  and  that  was  His 
only  plea. 

If  we  turn  to  those  who  still  in  our  own  day  decline 
to  go  for  their  gospel  beyond  the  earthly  life  and  the 
common  humanity  of  our  Lord  —  what  answer  will 
they  give  for  clinging  to  His  person  and  finding  their 
salvation  in  His  life?  I  think  we  may  say  that  the 
answer  as  it  has  shaped  itself  to  that  question  is  some- 
thing like  the  following:  Humanity  continues,  and  will 
always  continue,  to  believe  and  to  find  itself  in  Jesus, 
because  Jesus  embodies  and  expresses  to  humanity 
the  truth  of  itself;  the  truth,  the  beauty  and  the  good- 
ness of  itself.  And  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness  are 
the  sum  of  what  is  of  value,  and  ought  to  be  of  interest, 
to  humanity.  But  why  and  how  does  Jesus  Christ 
represent  to  us  all  that.''  We  do  not  know;  we  need 
not  know.     He  does;  we  accept  the  fact,  because  it  is 


18         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

self-demonstrating;  we  cannot  go  the  length  of  the 
explanations,  because  we  believe  they  extend  beyond 
the  limits  of  our  knowledge  or  proof. 

Well,  let  us  go  just  so  far,  and  no  farther,  and  find 
in  so  much  the  truth  and  power  contained  in  it.  We 
believe  in  Jesus  because  we  find  in  Jesus  the  truth  and 
good  that  most  concern  us,  the  truth  and  good  of  our- 
selves. Men  of  profoundest  thought  and  of  sincerest 
life  in  our  own  time  have,  in  spiritual  and  moral  ex- 
tremity, found  salvation  in  Jesus  Christ,  simply  because 
they  discovered  in  Him  what  did  not  exist  for  them 
without  Him  —  a  meaning  and  a  reason  for  human 
existence  and  human  life.  The  revelation  to  us,  no 
matter  how  it  comes,  of  the  truth,  the  meaning,  the 
reason,  the  good,  the  value,  and  above  all  —  the  way, 
the  secret,  of  the  infinitely  interesting  and  important 
mystery  we  call  life,  ought  to  be  to  us  surely  nothing 
short  of  a  gospel  and  a  salvation. 

The  personality  and  life  of  Jesus  could  never  have 
taken,  and  still  less  could  maintain  in  perpetuity,  the 
hold  it  has  upon  the  world,  if  it  were  not  true  to  the 
facts  of  the  world.  If  Jesus  Christ  were  not  the  truth, 
the  beauty,  the  good  sought  by  all  the  best  thought  and 
touched  by  all  the  best  experience  of  humanity  — 
humanity  would  not  have  given  Him,  would  not  give 
Him,  its  highest,  its  final  allegiance.  Every  knee 
would  not  bow  to  Him,  every  tongue  confess  Him  Lord. 
It  will  be  interesting  to  recall  a  few  of  the  leading  prin- 
ciples of  our  Lord's  life  and  character,  and  to  correlate 
them  with  the  best  that  has  been  thought  or  done 
before  or  apart  from  Him. 


Earthly  Life  of  Jesus  19 

In  the  first  place,  Jesus  took  definite  part  with  the 
West  against  the  East  in  making  the  distinctive  note 
of  life  not  apatheia  but  energeia.  Thought,  desire, 
will  were  not  to  be  abjured  and  disowned  in  despair, 
through  the  overpowering  sense  of  their  futility.  Life 
was  not  to  be  reduced  to  zero  through  their  renuncia- 
tion, but  raised  to  infinity  through  their  affirmation 
and  satisfaction.  The  life  of  Christianity  is  a  life  of 
infinite  energy  because  it  is  a  life  of  infinite  faith  and 
hope.  It  can  be  all  things,  do  all  things,  endure  all 
things.  It  feels  no  limit  in  itself,  it  sets  no  limit  to 
itself,  short  of  absolute  perfection.  It  sets  no  limit  to 
knowledge,  because  it  believes  itself  made  for  the  truth, 
and  that  the  truth  best  worth  knowing,  the  truth  of  self 
and  of  life,  will  more  and  more  reveal  and  verify  itself 
to  us  the  more  we  know  and  love  and  live  it.  It  sets 
no  limit  to  desire,  but  covets  earnestly  the  best  things. 
It  is  conscious  of  an  infinite  poverty,  and  finds  in  it  only 
the  potency  and  promise  of  an  infinite  riches  and  satis- 
faction. Pleasure  and  happiness  are  not  things  to  be 
denied  and  mortified.  They  are  to  be  placed  and 
found  in  the  right  objects,  and  to  be  swallowed  up  but 
not  lost  in  the  blessedness  of  the  perfect  life.  And  so 
finally  it  sets  no  limit  to  will,  to  activity,  to  achievement 
and  attainment.  If  our  wills  are  ours  only  as  we  sur- 
render them  to  the  larger  will  that  comprehends  and 
embraces  all  —  our  wills  are  His  only  as  we  have  made 
His  ours,  and  have  found  in  His  the  highest  freedom, 
realization,  and  satisfaction  of  our  own.  And  so  not 
only  as  against  the  aged  pessimism  of  the  East,  but 
equally   against  the   most   modern   fatalistic   necessi- 


20         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

tarianism  of  the  West,  Jesus  Christ  raises  to  the  highest 
pitch  the  universal  human  sense  and  consciousness  of 
personal  freedom  and  of  eternally  and  divinely  free 
personality. 

In  the  second  place,  Jesus  Christ  makes  Himself  at 
one  with  the  earliest  and  best  ethical  thought  of  the 
West  in  that  He  places  the  issues  and  decision  of  life, 
and  the  happiness  that  is  the  sense  or  consciousness 
of  life,  not  without  but  within  us,  not  in  the  action  upon 
us  of  environment,  but  in  our  own  free  and  personal 
reaction  upon  environment.  Environment  is  the  con- 
dition, but  we  are  the  causes,  of  life  and  its  blessedness 
—  or  the  reverse.  Aristotle  had  said :  It  is  the  energies, 
the  acts  and  activities,  of  ourselves,  of  our  own  souls 
that  control,  that  determine  and  constitute  happiness. 
Nature  makes  us  nothing;  it  constitutes  us,  by  the  pos- 
session and  use  of  reason  and  freedom,  to  make  our- 
selves all  that  in  life  we,  that  is  we  humanly,  personally, 
become.  It  is  the  essence  of  personality  that  it  is  made 
to  be  the  maker  of  itself.  Now  Jesus  Christ  em- 
phasizes and  deepens  this  great  fact  or  truth  of  life 
when  He  says  to  us :  The  kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within 
you.  He  Himself  had  found  and  entered  the  kingdom 
of  Heaven.  He  had  discovered  the  meaning  and  had 
experienced  the  blessedness  of  human  life,  —  even  such 
a  life  as  outwardly  His  own  was.  We  shall  see  as  we 
proceed,  as  the  essential  difference  between  Him  and 
all  others,  that  all  that  human  philosophy  in  even  an 
Aristotle  could  conceive  or  express.  He  was.  More 
than  that,  He  was  all  that  He  Himself  taught.  The 
kingdom  of  Heaven  was  all  in  Him,  because  His  life 


Earthly  Life  of  Jesus  21 

realized  and  embodied  all  that  constitutes  and  belongs 
to  the  kingdom  of  Heaven. 

In  the  third  place,  Jesus  Christ  is  the  great,  the  only, 
interpreter  to  us  of  the  meaning  and  reason  of  human 
environment  as  we  find  it.  It  is  not  only  that  environ- 
ment is  the  condition  of  life,  that  we  determine  ourselves 
only  through  our  response  to  its  action  upon  us.  If 
we  are  to  take  actuality  as  we  find  it,  if  we  deal  not 
with  theory  but  with  actual  conditions,  our  conclusion 
must  be  that  only  in  an  environment  of  evil  can  good 
determine  or  realize  itself.  Even  in  that  lower  world 
of  mere  animal  evolution  in  which  there  is  so  much  of 
purely  natural  or  physical  evil,  and  which  we  pronounce 
so  inexplicable  a  mystery,  can  we  see  how  there  could 
have  been  the  evolution  of  sensuous  pleasure  only 
through  and  in  contrast  with  the  sense  of  pain  ?  But 
the  question  enters  much  more  into  the  field  of  our 
experience  and  understanding  when  we  pass  into  the 
world  of  moral  action  and  life.  Within  the  sphere  of 
finite  activity  the  development  of  moral  good  appears 
to  be  absolutely  conditioned  upon  an  environment  of 
moral  evil.  To  take  it  at  once  in  its  most  developed 
form,  there  is  no  holiness  possible  or  thinkable  for  us 
which  is  not  a  distinct  attitude  towards,  a  definite 
action  upon,  what  we  know  as  sin.  If  we  did  not  know 
the  one  we  should  not  know  the  other.  Jesus  Christ 
was  no  exception.  His  holiness  was  a  resistance  unto 
blood  to  sin.  The  moral  significance  of  His  death  was 
that  it  was  a  death  to  sin.  His  perfection  was  accom- 
plished through  His  personal  attitude.  His  moral  or 
spiritual  superiority,  to  the  things  He  suffered.    There 


22         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

ought  to  be  no  mystery  to  us  in  the  outward  experiences, 
in  the  temptations,  the  fierce  trials,  the  afflictions  and 
suflFerings  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  ought  to  know  that 
the  moral  victory  He  won,  the  spiritual  height  He 
attained,  could  not  have  been  won  or  attained  by  Him 
as  man  except  through  such  an  outward  experience, 
except  in  reaction  and  conflict  with  such  a  world  of 
spiritual  and  moral  evil.  The  perfect  realization  by 
Jesus  Christ  of  all  that  is  true,  beautiful,  or  good  in 
humanity  as  personal  response  to  all  of  spiritual,  moral, 
and  natural  evil  that  met  and  assailed  Him  in  His 
outward  life,  is  God's  answer,  if  not  to  the  full  mean- 
ing and  necessity,  yet  to  His  own  use  in  the  world 
of  actuality  of  the  mystery  of  evil. 

But,  in  the  fourth  place,  the  contribution  of  Jesus 
to  the  truth  and  meaning  of  human  life  goes  nearer 
stUl  to  the  heart  of  the  matter.  In  the  "  virtue  "  of  the 
Greek,  the  "righteousness"  of  the  Hebrew,  and  the 
"holiness"  of  Christianity,  we  have  three  types  or 
standards  of  human  conduct  and  character.  With 
the  Greek  man  himself  was  the  measure  and  the  end. 
The  ideal  man  was  he  who  the  most  symmetrically, 
perfectly,  and  happily  realized  or  fulfilled  himself. 
As  in  plastic  art  he  strove  to  express  the  perfect  balance 
or  proportion  of  physical  beauty,  so  by  a  higher  spiritual 
aesthetic  perception  and  measurement  he  endeavoured 
to  portray  the  fair  features  and  proportions  of  the 
moral  ideal,  the  "beautiful  and  good"  in  humanity. 
But  the  ideal  man,  if  he  combined  in  himself  elements 
of  both  the  beautiful  and  the  good,  the  aesthetic  and 
the  moral,  inclined  very  much  more  in  the  direction 


Earthly  Life  of  Jesus  23 

of  the  former  than  of  the  latter.  Self-respect,  supreme 
regard  for  one's  "  own  fair  personality  "  was  the  dom- 
inant if  not  the  sole  motive.  The  ideal  was  a  beautiful 
one,  and  true  in  so  far  as  the  highest  beauty  must  neces- 
sarily approximate  the  true  and  the  good.  But  there 
was  still  too  much  in  it  of  egoism  to  allow  of  its  identi- 
fication with  these. 

The  Hebrew  saw  in  his  standard  and  measure  of 
human  life  and  conduct  something  vaster  and  more 
objective  than  the  perfection  and  beauty  of  his  own 
earthly  personality.  The  law  with  him  was  something 
more  than  that  of  nature  or  his  own  finite  nature.  The 
Greek  or  Roman  virtue  was  the  following  or  fulfilling 
of  nature,  the  realizing  of  manhood.  The  Hebrew 
righteousness  was  the  recognition  of  a  law,  and  behind 
the  law  a  personality,  infinitely  beyond  and  above 
himself  or  his  own.  The  tribunal  before  which  he 
bowed  was  not  his  own  right  reason  or  the  wider  wis- 
dom of  the  community  revising  his  private  judgment. 
There  was  a  judgment  seat  more  awful  than  the  aes- 
thetic taste  of  the  individual  or  the  public  opinion  of 
society.  The  power  not  himself  that  made  for  right- 
eousness, no  matter  how  it  came  or  how  it  revealed 
itself  to  him,  was  to  him  the  sum  of  all  reality.  We 
need  not  in  this  connection  dwell  upon  this  conception 
of  the  standard  or  measure  of  life  further  than  to  re- 
member that  it  was  an  objective  universal  law  other 
than  which  there  could  be  no  rule  or  principle  of  obliga- 
tion in  the  heavens  above  or  in  the  earth  beneath. 

The  Hebrew  point  of  view,  while  relieving  the  stand- 
ard of  the  finite  human  subjectivity  which  made  man. 


24         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

alone  the  measure,  was  in  danger  of  the  opposite 
extreme  of  making  the  law  too  wholly  objective;  and 
we  may  add,  of  separating  the  power  or  presence 
behind  the  law  too  far  from  human  life.  If  the  law 
had  needed  to  be  made  more  objective  and  universal, 
it  needed  now  again  to  become  more  subjective  and 
more  human.  It  was  the  problem  in  process  of  solu- 
tion, how  to  combine  the  opposite  truths  of  immanence 
and  transcendence.  Jesus  Christ,  by  not  stopping  at 
the  law  but  going  at  once  behind  and  beyond  it,  by 
recognizing  the  fact  that  no  objective  law  can  produce 
subjective  life  or  righteousness,  because  law  is  only 
the  outward  form,  the  expression  or  letter,  of  the  in- 
ward substance  which  we  call  spirit,  —  Jesus  Christ 
took  the  third  and  final  step  which  completes  the 
account  of  human  life.  If  the  passage  had  needed  to 
be  made  from  finite  subjectivity  to  infinite  objectivity, 
equally  necessary  was  the  passage  made  once  for  all 
by  Him  from  the  infinite  objective  to  the  infinite  sub- 
jective, from  the  absolute  without  us  in  the  form  of  law 
to  the  absolute  within  us  in  the  form  of  spirit.  The 
essence  of  the  moral  teaching  of  Jesus  was  the  change 
of  venue  from  the  tribunal  of  law  to  that  of  spirit.  The 
act  of  humanity  in  His  own  person  was  most  exactly 
expressed  in  the  words:  "Who  through  the  eternal 
Spirit  offered  Himself  without  spot."  In  Him  eternal 
law  had  given  place  to  eternal  spirit,  the  letter  that 
killeth  to  the  spirit  that  giveth  life. 

We  are  considering  the  truth  of  Jesus  just  now  not 
from  the  standpoint  of  Christianity  but  in  its  correla- 
tion with  other  reflections  and  conclusions  upon  human 


Earthly  Life  of  Jesus  25 

life.  And  so  we  may  ask  ourselves :  What  is  this  eternal 
spirit  through  which  Jesus  Christ  has  realized  forever 
for  us  the  true  meaning  and  end  of  humanity?  Let 
us  try  briefly  to  answer  this  question.  Science  more 
and  more  recognizes  the  universe  as  one,  and  as  a  uni- 
verse of  order.  Now  what  is  the  unity  and  the  order 
that  constitute  the  reality  of  the  universe.'*  In  the 
order  in  which  it  appears  to  us,  it  is  first  material  or 
physical,  and  then  moral,  and  then  spiritual.  Which 
of  these  is  the  real?  In  the  actual  evolution  of  our 
individual  selves,  we  are  first  purely  physical,  and  then 
psychical,  and  finally  spiritual  or  personal.  Which 
of  these  is  we?  Do  we  find  the  reality  of  ourselves 
in  the  physical,  the  psychical,  or  the  personal  —  the 
spiritual  and  moral  —  self  ?  Man  is  not  what  he  is 
in  process,  but  what  he  is  when  complete.  He  is,  as 
Aristotle  teaches  us,  his  highest  part.  Everything  is 
to  be  defined  by  its  end,  by  what  it  will  be  when  its 
becoming  is  completed  and  it  is  perfect.  If  we  are  to 
interpret  this  universe  as  a  whole,  in  the  light  of  that 
which  is  its  manifest  direction  and  logical  end,  we 
cannot  but  conclude  that  the  natural  order  exists  as 
the  necessary  condition  of  a  higher  moral  order,  which 
in  turn  has  no  meaning  or  possibility  except  as  the 
form  or  expression  of  a  yet  higher  spiritual  or  personal 
order.  It  is  absurd  to  object  to  this  that  the  moral 
and  spiritual  orders  are  still  so  far  from  existence. 
There  is  nothing  contradictory  or  impossible  in  the 
immediate  existence  of  a  material  order,  and  yet  even 
that  was  a  matter  of  inconceivably  slow  evolution. 
An  immediate  moral  or  spiritual  order  is  impossible. 


26         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

because  by  its  very  nature  it  must  evolve  or  constitute 
itself.  As  surely  as  gravitation  or  evolution  are  laws 
of  the  universe,  is  righteousness  a  law  of  the  universe,  — 
and  behind  and  before  them  all  is  that  spirit  of  which 
alone  righteousness  is  the  law,  the  ultimate  truth  and 
reality  of  the  universe.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  fulfilment 
of  nature  and  the  realization  of  humanity  because  He 
is  the  embodiment  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  order, 
not  only  the  infinite  law  but  the  eternal  spirit  of  the 
universe. 

But  we  have  not  yet  given  a  real  definition  of  the 
eternal  spirit  which  Jesus  Christ  embodied  and  re- 
vealed. His  contribution  to  life  was  the  truth  which 
is  at  once  first  and  last,  —  that  there  is  no  human 
good  but  goodness.  We  can  know  good  first  only  as 
our  own.  That  existence  itself,  that  life  or  anything 
pertaining  to  life,  is  a  good,  we  can  only  know  as  we 
experience  the  pleasure,  the  value,  or  worth  of  them 
for  ourselves.  But  the  good  which  as  such  we  can 
first  know  only  as  our  own  we  can  then,  by  necessary 
inference,  know  and  will  to  others  as  theirs.  And 
this  is  the  origin  and  essence  of  goodness.  Man  is 
never  from  the  first  an  individual  but  always  a  social 
being.  He  has  his  existence  in,  with,  and  through 
others.  He  lives  and  becomes  all  that  constitutes 
himself  only  in  concrete  relationships  and  in  actual 
personal  exchanges  between  himself  and  them.  A 
man  can  be  a  good  man  only  by  fulfilling  his  natural 
relations,  by  being  a  good  son,  brother,  husband, 
father,  friend,  neighbour,  citizen.  And  as  this  is  his 
only  impersonal  goodness,  so  is  it  his  only  personal 


Earthly  Life  of  Jesus  27 

good.  He  cannot  realize  himself  except  in,  with,  and 
through  others.  His  universe  is  so  constructed,  his 
life  is  so  constituted,  that  there  is  no  good  for  him 
except  goodness.  He  cannot  love  himself  except  as 
he  loves  others  as  himself.  He  cannot  find  himself 
except  as  he  loses  himself  in  others.  Jesus  saw  and 
not  only  perfectly  expressed  but  perfectly  embodied 
the  fact  that  goodness  or  love  is  the  secret  and  the 
essence  of  human  life.  And  of  human  only  because 
of  all  life.  It  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all  reality. 
As  the  natural  exists  only  for  the  moral,  so  the  moral 
is  only  the  outward  expression,  the  law,  of  the  spiritual. 
And  the  spiritual,  which  is  the  real,  is  infinite  and 
eternal  goodness.  The  real  law  of  the  universe  is  the 
law  of  righteousness,  and  the  true  soul  and  life  of 
righteousness  is  the  spirit  of  love,  whom  the  world 
calls  God. 

It  follows  not  only  naturally  but  necessarily  from 
the  above  that  Jesus,  calling  Himself  always  Son  of 
Man,  —  that  is,  true,  essential  manhood,  —  should 
speak  of  Himself  as  having  come  into  the  world  not  to 
be  served  but  to  serve,  to  be  the  servant  of  all,  even  to 
the  point  of  giving  His  life  for  all.  Love,  service, 
sacrifice,  —  these  He  has,  not  made,  but  revealed  in 
His  person  and  human  life  to  be  the  spirit  and  law  and 
reality  of  the  universe. 


y^ 


n 


THE  GROWTH  AND  PREPARATION 
OF  JESUS 

We  have  been  considering  our  Lord's  earthly  life 
from  the  standpoint  of  conceptions  of  life  in  general. 
We  come  back  now  to  study  it  from  the  point  of  view 
and  in  terms  of  the  distinctively  Christian  records.  If 
our  Gospels  are  to  be  supposed  to  include  properly 
only  the  report  of  the  public  ministry  (as  defined  in 
Acts  1:  21,  22),  we  must  remember  that  Jesus  appears 
in  that  ministry  at  the  age  of  thirty,  with  full  qualifica- 
tion and  authority  to  discharge  its  functions.  There 
was  no  apparent  question  within  Himself  of  Himself, 
and  no  questioning  of  Him  on  the  part  of  those  capable 
of  feeling  the  force  of  His  authority.  It  is  to  the  records 
so  limited  as  though  He  had  come  into  the  world  fully 
equipped  for  His  part  in  it.  But  if  Jesus  was  human. 
He  was  so  not  only  in  what  He  was  at  His  height,  but 
in  the  process  by  which  He  attained  that  height  and 
became  what  He  was.  If  we  are  to  know  Him,  with- 
out which  it  is  impossible  to  know  His  life  or  His  life- 
work,  we  are  obliged  to  take  into  account  the  contribu- 
tion of  the  thirty  years  of  preparation  for  His  ministry. 

The  traditions  of  our  Lord's  youth  later  prefixed  to 
the  records,  brief  as  they  are,  are,  when  we  consider 


Growth  and  Preparation  of  Jesus         29 

them  carefully,  singularly  probable  in  matter  and  exact 
and  illuminating  in  expression.  The  child  Jesus,  we 
are  told  in  St.  Luke,  —  after  the  circumstances  of  His 
birth  and  the  formalities  of  His  circumcision,  presenta- 
tion, etc.,  have  been  narrated,  —  grew  and  waxed 
strong,  filled  with  wisdom:  and  the  grace  of  God  was 
upon  him.  The  general  terms  are  practically  identical 
with  those  just  before  applied  to  John  the  Baptist: 
The  child  grew  and  waxed  strong  in  spirit.  They  are 
in  either  case  descriptive  of  a  normal,  purely  human, 
not  only  physical  but  spiritual,  youthful  development. 
But  in  the  case  of  Jesus  the  description  is  more  explicit, 
as  doubtless  the  growth  described  was  fuller  and  more 
complete.  In  the  first  place,  the  child  grew  and  ma- 
tured pari  passu  in  all  the  elements  or  parts  of  a  com- 
plete human  development,  physical,  intellectual,  spir- 
itual. It  is  added :  Filled,  or  properly  filling,  becoming 
more  and  more  full,  of  wisdom.  Emphasis  is  naturally, 
perhaps  unconsciously,  laid  upon  the  inward  and  out- 
ward means  and  process  by  which  we  shall  see  the 
wisdom  was  acquired,  and  the  necessary  progress  of 
its  accumulation.  Wisdom  is  in  itself,  as  Aristotle 
defines  it,  the  product  only  of  time  and  experience. 
And  then,  most  significantly  of  all,  come  the  words: 
And  the  grace  of  God  was  upon  him.  It  in  no  way 
militates  against  the  perfect  humanness  of  Jesus  to 
know  that  from  the  first,  in  a  more  complete  way  than 
through  the  prophets  or  John  the  Baptist  before  or 
St.  Paul  afterwards  (who  believed  in  his  separation 
from  his  mother's  womb),  God  was  preparing  to  reveal 
or  express  Himself  through  Him.     That,  as  we  have 


30         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

seen,  was  just  the  gist  of  the  long  promised  messiah- 
ship  which  Jesus  was  later  to  assume.  The  grace  of 
God  is  a  quality  communicated  or  imparted.  It  is 
something  which,  creaturely  or  humanly,  we  have  not 
of  ourselves,  for  which  we  are  dependent  and  which 
we  can  receive  only  from  the  personal  source  of  all 
personal  life.  It  is  identical  with  the  spirit  of  God, 
that  eternal  spirit  which  lies  behind  all  law  material  or 
spiritual,  and  which  is  the  ultimate  reality  or  fact  of 
the  universe.  That  divine  spirit  lay  upon  Him  from 
the  beginning,  and  wrought  through  Him  all  that 
through  it  He  humanly  accomplished  or  became.  We 
cannot  for  a  moment  blind  ourselves  to  the  truth  that 
God  was  the  objective  source  and  cause,  and  the  ob- 
jectively apprehended  and  known  cause,  of  all  the 
subjectively  and  humanly  attained  heights  of  the 
earthly  life  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  above  account  of  the  beginnings  of  our  Lord's 
life  is  consistently  taken  up  and  continued  in  the  equally 
brief  description  of  the  incident  which  throws  additional 
light  upon  it  at  the  age  of  twelve.  After  narrating 
that  incident,  to  which  we  shall  return,  St.  Luke  pro- 
ceeds: And  Jesus  advanced  in  wisdom  and  stature, — 
in  wisdom  as  in  age  and  physical  development,  —  and 
in  favour  with  God  and  men.  There  is  definite  prog- 
ress and  new  interpretation  expressed  in  the  last  clause. 
The  word  here  translated  favour,  and  elsewhere  other- 
wise, is  the  same  term  grace  which  we  have  been  just 
discussing.  Jesus  advanced  in  grace  with  God  and 
men.  It  is  in  reality  the  same  grace  viewed  at  different 
points,  first  as  operating  objectively  from  God  upon 


Growth  and  Preparation  of  Jesus         31 

Jesus,  and  then  secondly  as  operating  subjectively  in 
Jesus  towards  God  and  men.  The  spirit  that  comes 
from  God  as  His  appears  in  us  as  ours.  There  is  no 
more  exact  or  beautiful  designation  of  the  spirit  that 
Jesus  was  of  than  is  conveyed  by  the  word  Grace.  As 
between  Him  and  God  it  is  the  response  of  God  within 
Him  to  God  without.  As  between  Him  and  men  it  is 
the  eternal  spirit  looking  humanly  on  earth  upon  men 
as  God  looks  upon  them  from  heaven.  We  have  in 
this  little  touch  a  glimpse  of  the  spiritual  attitude  at 
once  towards  God  and  towards  men  that  was  growing 
with  the  growth  of  Jesus  and  that  was  to  be  the  sole 
key  to  the  explanation  of  His  whole  life  and  ministry. 
It  already  manifested  itself  in  His  youth  in  a  gracious- 
ness  of  spirit  and  manner  with  men  which  gave  Him 
favour  with  them,  far  as  yet  as  they  were  from  fathom- 
ing its  true  depth  and  significance.  We  speak  of  the 
sweet  reasonableness  of  Jesus.  The  peculiar  quality 
we  are  trying  to  catch  and  fix  is  better  expressed  in 
terms  of  the  heart  than  of  the  head.  The  sweet  rea- 
sonableness rests  upon  a  deeper  and  sweeter  sympathy 
which  drew  Him  to  all  men  and  draws  all  men  to  Him 
if  they  will  but  let  themselves  see  and  know  Him.  It 
is  with  the  heart  rather  than  with  the  head  that  we 
understand  and  know  one  another.  The  pure  in  heart 
see  men  as  well  as  God  as  they  are,  and  have  the  sweet 
reasonableness  to  deal  with  them  as  they  should. 

Closely  connected  if  not  identical  with  the  spirit  or 
temper  just  described  is  the  faculty  of  spiritual  per- 
ception or  intelligence  which  so  struck  the  doctors  in 
their    conversation    with    Him    in    the    temple.     The 


32         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

power  to  "  understand "  —  whether  things,  men,  or 
God  —  lies  deeper  than  the  mind  or  than  the  natural 
affections.  It  consists  in  a  universality  of  spirit  that 
at-ones  us  with  the  objects  to  be  understood.  Jesus 
was  among  the  doctors  to  leam,  to  be  taught.  They 
were  amazed  at  His  teachableness,  at  His  quickness 
to  comprehend.  His  ready  response  to  instruction. 
There  was  in  Him  the  opposite  of  the  individualism 
which  is  the  expression  of  only  one's  particular  self. 
The  universal  and  eternal  in  Him  sought  to  make  Him 
one  with  all.  And  so  He  thirsted  and  was  mature 
beyond  His  years  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  those  Scrip- 
tures which  had  been  not  only  the  literature  but  the 
life  of  God's  people  from  the  beginning.  In  a  word, 
there  were  in  the  youthful  Jesus  all  the  human  condi- 
tions of  divine  knowledge,  and  therefore  there  was  in 
Him  more  and  more  the  fulness  and  perfection  of  divine 
knowledge. 

The  unity  of  spirit  that  characterized  the  youth  and 
the  later  ministry  of  our  Lord  may  be  briefly  illustrated 
in  one  or  two  points.  In  St.  Luke's  first  description 
of  His  public  appearance  the  comment  upon  the  im- 
pression produced  is  as  follows:  And  all  bare  Him 
witness,  and  wondered  at  the  words  of  grace  which 
proceeded  out  of  His  mouth.  The  words  of  grace, 
or  the  gracious  words  —  the  meaning  includes  both. 
There  was  first  the  manner  that  betokened  the  spirit, 
the  temper  or  disposition,  which  actuated  Him  in 
speaking.  It  was  the  spirit  of  God  speaking  in  Him. 
And  then  there  was  the  matter  of  His  speaking,  than 
which  nothing  could  better  express  the  substance  of 


Growth  and  Preparation  of  Jesus         33 

His  ministry.  It  was  the  grace  of  God  bringing 
through  Him  salvation  to  men.  It  has  been  re- 
marked that  Jesus  loved  best  in  the  Scriptures  the 
prophet  Isaiah  and  the  book  Deuteronomy.  The  les- 
son He  had  read  in  the  synagogue  was  from  the 
former  : 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me, 

Because  He  anointed  me  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the 
poor: 

He  hath  sent  me  to  proclaim  release  to  the  captives. 

And  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind, 

To  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised, 

To  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord. 

"  He  anointed  me  to  "  —  that  then  was  the  meaning 
of  the  anointing,  the  mission  of  the  Anointed:  to  bring 
down  God's  spirit  and  grace  and  salvation,  in  a  word 
God's  eternal  life,  and  establish  it  in  a  kingdom  of  God 
upon  earth. 

In  the  later  preaching  of  our  Lord,  St.  Luke  reports 
Him  as  saying:  If  ye  love  them  that  love  you,  if  ye  do 
good  to  them  that  do  good  to  you,  if  ye  lend  to  them  of 
whom  ye  hope  to  receive  —  what  thank  have  ye  ?  The 
word  not  improperly  rendered  thank  or  thanks  means 
something  more  than  that.  It  is  again  the  word  grace : 
What  grace  have  ye  ?  Not  only  what  thanks  or  reward, 
not  only  what  men  will  recognize  and  be  grateful  for, 
but  what  is  the  only  motive  of  any  true  disposition  or 
act  towards  others,  namely,  the  spirit  and  grace  of  God. 
Therefore  St.  Luke  reports  our  Lord  as  continuing: 
But  love  your  enemies,  and  do  them  good,  and  lend, 
never  despairing;  and  your  reward  shall  be  great,  and 


34         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

ye  shall  be  sons  of  the  Most  High:  for  he  is  kind  to- 
wards the  unthankful  and  evil.  Be  ye  merciful  even 
as  your  Father  is  merciful.  These  last  words  open  a 
view  into  what  was  the  heart  and  soul  of  our  Lord's 
preparation  and  qualification  for  His  ministry.  Rather, 
they  suggest  the  truth  of  all  that  He  was  to  be  or  ac- 
complish in  and  for  humanity.  It  has  always  been 
recognized  that  the  supreme  human  act  and  attain- 
ment of  Jesus  Christ  was  that  He  truly  conceived  and 
perfectly  realized  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  so  the 
divine  sonship  of  men.  The  growth  of  Jesus  was  the 
development  in  Him  of  this  conception  and  the  progress 
of  this  realization.  When  His  parents,  after  their 
three  days'  search,  found  Him  in  the  temple,  and  re- 
proached Him  with  the  fact  that  they  had  sought  Him 
sorrowing,  His  reply  was:  Why  should  they  have 
sought  Him  ?  Where  should  He  be  but  in  His  Father's 
house,  interested  and  engaged  in  His  Father's  business  .'* 
All  truth  was  expressed  for  Him  in  that  divine  relation- 
ship, all  duty  or  pleasure  was  contained  in  the  life-long 
and  life-filling  task  of  fulfilling  it.  Taken  alone  we 
might  seem  to  read  too  much  into  our  Lord's  use  of 
these  words  in  this  His  first  recorded  utterance.  But 
they  are  very  far  from  standing  alone.  When  the 
preparation  was  over  and  the  great  call  and  commission 
to  the  ministry  was  given  and  received,  the  divine 
recognition  of  His  qualification  and  fitness  for  the  task 
came  to  Him  from  Heaven  in  the  words:  Thou  art  my 
beloved  Son;  in  thee  I  am  well  pleased.  The  prepara- 
tion for  the  true  Messiahship  is  the  realization  of  the 
true  sonship.     The  fulness  of  the  divine  spirit  involves 


Growth  and  Preparation  of  Jesus         35 

the  impartation  of  the  divine  nature  and  the  reproduc- 
tion of  the  divine  life,  and  that  is  the  essence  and  truth 
of  divine  sonship. 

But  the  preparation  was  not  wholly  over  with  the 
commission.  The  awful  burden  and  task  imposed 
by  the  latter  necessitated  another,  a  more  conscious 
and  thorough,  going  over  of  the  whole  ground  of  the 
former.  The  entire  temptation  in  the  wilderness  turns 
upon  the  fact  and  foundations  of  the  human  divine 
sonship  of  Jesus.  He  was  there  on  trial  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  humanity.  There  in  and  upon  His  person 
were  pending  and  depending  the  destinies  of  humanity. 
We  are  to  understand  that  temptation,  if  we  understand 
it  at  all,  as  the  supreme  test  and  the  decisive  if  not  yet 
final  vindication  and  establishment  of  man's  sonship 
to  God.  This  statement  will  necessitate  a  partial 
analysis  of  the  brief  story. 

The  account  of  the  temptation  is,  in  the  first  place, 
a  report  of  actual  experiences  —  subjective  if  not 
objective  —  of  our  Lord  in  the  crisis  of  His  entrance 
upon  His  ministry.  But,  in  the  second  place,  the 
account  is  given  in  language  which  is  plainly  not  literal 
but  symbolical.  And  this  very  fact  gives  it  a  signifi- 
cance and  an  application  far  wider  than  that  of  an 
individual  experience;  it  makes  it  universal.  Further- 
more, our  Lord  Himself  expresses  the  principle  and 
application  of  each  temptation  withstood  in  terms  as 
universal  as  humanity  itself:  It  is  written,  Man  shall 
not  live  by  bread  alone;  It  is  said.  Thou  shalt  not  tempt 
the  Lord  thy  God.  Such  maxims  of  conduct  are 
definitely  human,  and  these  Jesus  establishes  at  the 


36         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

beginning  as  principles  and  foundations  of  His  kingdom 
of  the  divine  life  on  earth.  These  are  that  rock  upon 
which,  except  a  man  build,  his  house  cannot  but  fall. 
The  symbolism  of  the  story  of  the  temptation  is  sug- 
gested by  the  history  of  Israel  as  spiritually  interpreted 
in  the  book  of  Deuteronomy.  That  history  itself  has 
always  been  accepted  as  symbolical  of  human  life  in 
general:  the  divine  fatherhood  and  the  great  salvation; 
the  promise  of  a  land  of  rest  and  fruition ;  the  condition 
and  then  the  trial  of  the  people's  faith,  the  temptations 
in  the  wilderness;  the  failure  to  enter  in  because  of 
unbelief.  In  contrast  and  reversal  of  Israel's  tempta- 
tion and  defeat  we  have  the  picture  of  Israel's  tempta- 
tion and  victory.  The  particular  passage  that  gives 
form  to  the  later  story  is  the  following  (Deut.  8:  1-3): 
And  thou  shalt  remember  all  the  way  which  the  Lord 
thy  God  led  thee  these  forty  years  in  the  wilderness, 
that  He  might  humble  thee,  to  prove  thee,  to  know 
what  was  in  thy  heart,  whether  thou  wouldst  keep  His 
commandments  or  no.  And  He  humbled  thee  and 
suffered  thee  to  hunger,  and  fed  thee  with  manna, 
which  thou  knewest  not  neither  did  thy  fathers  know; 
that  He  might  make  thee  know  that  man  doth  not  live 
by  bread  only,  but  by  everything  that  proceedeth  out 
of  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  doth  man  live.  The  lesson 
of  life  as  seen  in  the  Scriptures,  Old  and  New,  is  in  the 
first  place  that  life  comes  from  its  divine  source  and 
not  from  the  earthly  media  through  which  it  is  received. 
And  secondly,  that  life,  in  all  its  potencies  and  prom- 
ises, can  be  possessed  and  enjoyed  only  through  faith. 
And  faith  comes  only  through  trial.     The  highest  and 


Growth  and  Preparation  of  Jesus         37 

latest  energy  and  act  of  our  personality,  that  by  which 
we  conquer  the  world  and  transcend  earthly  limita- 
tions and  conditions,  is  not  attained  easily  and  pain- 
lessly. "That  the  proof  of  your  faith,  more  precious 
than  gold  that  perisheth  though  it  is  proved  by  fire, 
might  be  found  unto  praise  and  glory'  and  honour." 
The  conception  and  realization  of  divine  sonship  with 
all  its  implications  is  not  a  plain  and  easy  thing  for  flesh 
and  blood.  Even  after  the  vision  of  the  bared  arm  of 
the  Lord  in  his  redemption  from  Egypt,  it  was  not 
easy  for  Israel  to  feel  the  presence  or  keep  hold  of  the 
promises,  to  remember  or  exercise  his  divine  sonship, 
in  the  land  of  sand  and  dearth.  Very  straight  home 
to  him  went  the  temptation :  If  thou  art  the  son  of  God, 
command  that  these  stones  be  made  bread.  If  thou 
art,  —  doubt  is  the  beginning  of  all  weakness,  and  the 
certain  cause  of  all  human  failure.  Men  enter  not  in 
because  of  unbelief.  But  how  in  a  world  like  this 
shall  we  believe  that  we  are  the  sons  of  God,  with 
power  therefore  to  be  what  God  is  ?  Jesus  Christ  has 
shown  us  the  way,  by  Himself  entering  in  and  so  open- 
ing it  to  all.  It  was  not  plainer  or  easier  for  Him  than 
for  us  to  know  Himself  son  of  God,  and  so  to  have 
grace  and  power  to  perform  a  son's  part  in  the  world. 
If  the  heavens  had  opened  and  proclaimed  Him  son, 
it  was  only  in  recognition  of  the  fact  that  by  faith  He 
had  known  and  made  Himself  son.  Even  after  that 
mighty  demonstration  and  confirmation  of  His  faith, 
the  conditions  under  which,  as  He  foresaw.  He  was 
entering  upon  a  humanly  impossible  task  were  enough 
to  drive  Him  into  the  wilderness  of  doubt  and  despair. 


38         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

How  should  He  accomplish  the  task  before  Him,  the 
hopeless  task  of  human  salvation  ?  Comparing  the 
means  with  the  end,  how  could  the  temptation  not 
assail  Him:  If  thou  art  the  son  of  God,  command 
these  stones  that  they  be  made  bread ;  —  of  these 
stones  raise  up  children  unto  Abraham!  I  do  not 
undertake  to  say  just  what  were  the  elements  that 
entered  into  this  first  temptation  of  our  Lord.  Only 
this  I  seem  to  see  clearly:  the  whole  question  of  faith, 
the  whole  human  hold  upon  the  reality  of  the  divine 
fatherhood  and  upon  the  power  and  the  promise  of 
human  sonship  was  at  issue  in  it.  If  man  is  son  of 
God;  if  there  is  warrant  for  faith  in  that  divine  fact;  if 
human  faith  can  and  will  lay  hold  upon  it  and  conquer 
its  way  to  eternal  life,  —  then  that  is  our  gospel  and 
our  salvation.  And  all  this  was  and  is  done  by  human- 
ity in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  He  fought  the 
battle,  He  proved  the  possibility  of  the  victory.  He 
showed  us  the  place  and  revealed  to  us  the  secret  of 
the  power. 

The  lesson  of  the  second  temptation  was  scarcely 
less  important.  We  are  not  more  apt  or  prone  to  want 
faith,  to  be  ignorant  of  the  power  of  God  which  is  ours 
unto  salvation,  than,  having  faith,  or  thinking  we  have 
it,  to  tempt  God  by  presuming  upon  it.  We  are  con- 
stantly expecting  of  faith,  and  complaining  of  not 
having  from  it,  not  only  what  it  is  not  its  function  to 
give,  but  what  the  giving  to  us  would  be  our  worst 
undoing.  We  little  realize  how  much,  as  believers, 
we  expect  to  have  done  for  us  which  we  do  not  do  for 
ourselves.     But  it  is  never  the  purpose  of  grace  to 


Growth  and  Preparation  of  Jesus         39 

make  us  anything  which  we  are  not  at  all  the  pains,  and 
the  pain,  of  making  ourselves.  Nothing  indeed  can  be 
added  to  us,  in  the  true  sense  of  us,  which  does  not  as 
truly  proceed  from  us  as  from  the  higher  source  which 
only  makes  it  ours  by  enabling  us  to  make  it  ours. 
All  that  comes  to  us  from  God,  and  as  God's,  such  as 
His  spirit.  His  grace.  His  life,  comes  to  us  at  all  only  as 
we  too  have  so  made  them  our  own  that  they  appear  in 
us  only  as  ours.  It  is  only  by  the  spirit  we  are  of  that 
we  may  be  recognized  as  children  of  God.  Whose  spirit, 
God's  or  ours  ?  Only  the  one  if  the  other.  The  life 
of  Jesus  Christ  was  the  opposite  of  one  of  enthusiasm 
or  fanaticism.  What  He  most  truly  was  He  was  not 
by  miracle  but  humanly,  after  the  way  of  a  man,  — 
of  God  because  of  Himself,  of  Himself  because  of  God 
—  because  a  man  is  only  himself  in  and  with  and 
through  God.  Though  it  may  not  appear  at  once, 
the  outcome  of  the  second  temptation  was  the  victory 
of  hope,  as  that  of  the  first  was  the  victory  of  faith. 
Hope  is  of  ourselves  as  faith  is  of  God,  as  to  their 
objects.  As  faith  is  the  realization  of  all  God  in  and 
with  us,  so  hope  is  the  realization  of  all  ourselves  in 
and  with  God.  Because  we  know  that  all  things  are 
possible  with  God,  therefore  we  know  that  we  can  be 
and  do  all  things.  What  we  want  is  God  in  us,  in 
what  we  are.  The  religion  that  craves  miracles  is  a 
religion  that  seeks  a  sign  outside  itself  because  it  lacks 
assurance  in  itself.  If  it  knew  God  in  itself  by  faith, 
and  itself  in  God  in  hope,  it  would  ask  no  proof  outside 
of  that.  Our  Lord's  own  religion  was  one  not  of  out- 
ward sign  but  of  inward  reality.      He  demanded  to 


40         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

be  received  for  the  substance,  Himself  —  and  not  for 
the  accidents,  His  miracles. 

Without  going  too  much  at  length  into  the  meaning 
of  the  third  temptation,  I  would  offer  the  following 
suggestions  for  its  interpretation.  Our  Lord  had  His 
own  way  of  entering  into  the  authority  and  glory  of 
His  Messianic  kingdom.  When  the  hour  for  it  was 
come.  He  lifted  up  His  eyes  to  heaven  and  said.  Father, 
the  hour  is  come;  glorify  thy  Son,  that  the  Son  may 
glorify  thee!  And  God  glorified  Him  as  He  glorified 
God,  in,  we  may  be  sure,  the  divinest  way,  the  way  of 
Gethsemane  and  Calvary.  A  few  months  before, 
when  Jesus  was  beginning  to  prepare  His  disciples  for 
the  way  in  which  He  was  to  be  glorified,  Peter  took 
Him  and  began  to  rebuke  Him,  saying,  Be  it  far  from 
thee  Lord;  this  shall  never  be  unto  thee.  But  he 
turned  and  said  unto  Peter,  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan : 
thou  art  a  stumbling-block  unto  me:  for  thou  mindest 
not  the  things  of  God,  but  the  things  of  men.  If  it  was 
a  temptation  of  Satan  to  shrink  from  entering  upon 
His  kingdom  in  the  divine  way,  surely  it  was  Satan 
himself  in  the  human  temptation  that  assailed  Him 
to  establish  that  kingdom  in  just  the  opposite  way, 
upon  the  principles  not  of  love  and  service  and  sacri- 
fice, but  of  pride  and  ambition  and  earthly  self-exalta- 
tion. To  surrender  one's  soul  to  such  motives  as  these 
is  to  fall  down  and  worship  Satan.  Pride,  or  the  wor- 
ship of  Self,  is  the  subtlest,  the  first  and  the  last,  of 
human  temptations.  Even  when  one  has  given  one- 
self in  faith  and  hope  to  God,  it  creeps  in  in  spiritual 
form  to  poison  and  corrupt  the  joy  and  exaltation  that 


Growth  and  Preparation  of  Jesus         41 

belong  of  right  to  these.  Jesus  could  recognize  and 
accept  the  glory  which  is  the  reward  of  spiritual  victory, 
and  in  that  moment  detect  and  exclude  every  trace  of 
self-seeking  or  self-exaltation.  He  could  perfectly 
lose  Himself  in  the  act  in  which  He  most  perfectly 
found  Himself.  The  only  true  humility  is  that  of 
perfect  love.  One  can  lose  oneself  only  in  preoccupa- 
tion with  that  in  others  which  takes  and  fills  the  place 
of  self.  The  power  to  do  this,  which  is  the  triumph 
of  divine  love,  is  the  only  secret  of  putting  behind  that 
opposite  spirit  which  is  of  the  devil. 

Thus  the  issue  of  the  three  temptations  was  the  de- 
cisive, though  not  yet  the  final  and  complete,  victory 
of  the  three  great  principles  which  are  the  spiritual 
foundations  of  the  kingdom  of  God  —  Faith,  Hope, 
Love.  As  they  were  the  constituents  of  our  Lord's 
own  divine  human  life,  so  are  they  the  constituents  of 
that  selfsame  life  as  He  imparts  it  to  us  by  His  spirit 
in  us. 


m 

THE  DIVINE  SONSHIP  OF  HUMANITY 

As  we  have  seen  that  the  realization  of  a  divine  son- 
ship,  not  so  much  in  human  nature  as  in  human  life, 
was  the  end  and  achievement  of  the  earthly  life  of 
Jesus,  it  may  be  well  to  delay  a  little  upon  the  attempt 
to  see  more  exactly  what  that  sonship  signifies.  And 
it  may  be  as  well  to  put  the  question  in  the  form 
suggested  above:  Are  we  to  find  the  divine  son- 
ship  made  so  much  of  by  our  Lord  in  a  fact  of  nature 
or  in  an  act  of  life  ?  It  is  an  old  and  familiar  issue 
among  us:  Did  Jesus  Christ  find  man  son  of  God,  or 
did  He  make  him  so?  When  we  are  baptized  into 
Christ,  are  we  thereby  only  declared  to  be,  or  are  we 
thereby  made,  children  of  God  ?  I  shall  not  so  much 
undertake  to  decide  between  these  two  views  as  attempt 
to  state  the  truth  of  both.  But  we  must  admit  at  once 
that,  on  the  surface  at  least,  the  stress  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  the  Church  is  much  more  on  the  second  view 
than  on  the  first.  They  seem  to  make  little  of  the 
natural  sonship  and  much  of  the  spiritual,  the  com- 
municated or  acquired.  Our  sonship  originated  with 
and  dates  from  Christ.  It  exists  only  in  Him,  and 
can  be  ours  only  as  we  are  in  Him,  by  the  grace  of  God 
upon  us  and  the  grace  of  God  in  us.     We  can  find  the 

42 


The  Divine  Sonship  of  Humanity      43 

explanation  of  this  only,  I  think,  in  an  analysis  of  the 
fact  and  meaning  of  sonship  in  general. 

What  then  do  we  mean  by  sonship,  word  or  thing? 
All  through  nature  life  reproduces  itself;  like  begets 
like.  But  we  do  not  apply  the  terms  father  and  son 
to  vegetable  or  animal  relationships  of  begetter  and 
begotten.  In  their  case  the  relation  is  only  a  natural 
one  in  which  themselves  have  no  part,  —  for  the  reason 
that,  in  the  true  sense,  they  have  no  selves.  In  the 
case  of  even  the  higher  animals  that  which  is  begotten 
is  like  that  which  begot  it  by  the  sole  fact  of  its  begetting, 
though  it  should  never  know  its  parent  or  any  member 
of  its  species.  But  a  man  is  not  a  man,  in  what  is 
distinctive  of  man,  by  being  merely  bom  of  man.  He 
would  never  become  man  apart  from,  or  except  through, 
subsequent  personal  association  with  man.  What 
essentially  differences  man  from  the  brute,  what  ac- 
cording to  Aristotle  constitutes  his  higher  and  dis- 
tinctive part,  actually  comes  to  him  not  by  physical 
birth  but  by  personal  association.  I  say  actually,  not 
of  course  potentially.  But  whatever  of  spiritual  or 
personal  potentiality  a  human  being  inherits  by  birth 
is  as  though  it  were  not  until  it  is  elicited  by  the  second 
birth  of  intercommunication  and  association.  It  is 
born  not  of  blood  but  of  intelligence  and  affection  and 
will  and  self-activity.  So  we  may  say  that  in  that 
which  truly  constitutes  it,  that  which  separates  it  from 
mere  vegetable  and  animal  generation,  sonship  is  a 
personal  and  not  a  physical  relationship.  It  comes 
through  knowing  and  realizing  itself.  Of  course  we 
may  say  that  it  could  not  know  itself  if  it  did  not  already 


44         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

exist.  And  in  this  is  the  truth  of  the  natural  sonship. 
But  when  we  endeavour  to  fix  the  true  meaning  and 
content  of  sonship  we  find  that  that  mere  potential 
existence  is  actual  and  practical  non-existence. 

The  clearest  statement  of  the  matter  seems  to  me  to 
be  afforded  by  Aristotle's  account  of  virtue.  No  man  is 
virtuous  by  nature,  for  the  simple  reason  that  virtue 
is  not  a  natural  but  a  personal  quality.  It  is  not  virtue 
except  in  so  far  as  it  has  come  through  oneself,  con- 
sciously, voluntarily,  and  of  choice.  Yet  virtue  is  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  and  vice  the  most 
unnatural.  Virtue  is  the  fulfilment  of  our  nature,  — 
but  it  is  our  fulfilment  of  it,  and  it  does  not  really  exist 
prior  to  our  act  and  activity  in  its  production.  Nature 
constitutes  us — not  virtuous,  but  to  become  so,  to  make 
ourselves  so.  And  it  so  constitutes  us  by  making  us  per- 
sons, by  endowing  us  with  reason  to  know  and  will  to 
act  of  ourselves.  Just  so  it  is  with  our  sonship  to  God. 
What  is  natural  in  it  is  a  mere  potentiality  which, 
actually  and  practically,  is  equivalent  to  non-existence. 
It  is  of  course  no  small  thing  that  we  are  by  nature 
endowed  with  spiritual  and  personal  potentialities; 
that  is  the  condition  of  all  else  we  may  be  or  become. 
Yes,  but  it  is  only  the  condition,  —  out  of  which  we 
may  become  all  sorts  of  opposites  and  contradictories. 
The  potentiality  to  be  virtuous  or  to  be  children  of  God 
is  equally  the  potentiality  to  be  vicious  and  children 
of  the  de\dl.  Shall  we  say  that  we  are  these  too  by 
nature .''  If  it  is  more  natural  to  be  child  of  God  than 
of  the  devil,  that  can  only  mean  that  in  ourselves  be- 
coming the  one  we  will  more  perfectly  realize  ourselves 


The  Divine  Sonship  of  Humanity      45 

than  in  becoming  the  other ;  that  in  fact  one  is  our  doing 
and  the  other  our  undoing.  But  the  being  one  or  tlie 
other  is  act  of  ourselves  and  not  fact  of  our  nature. 

In  the  case  of  our  Lord's  own  human-divine  sonship, 
the  stress  in  the  Gospels  is  laid  not  upon  the  natural  but 
upon  the  spiritual  part  or  side  of  it.  He  is  son  because 
He  knows  and  realizes  His  sonship.  The  divine  recog- 
nition at  His  baptism  is  a  recognition  not  of  what  He 
was  potentially  by  His  birth,  but  of  what  He  was,  and 
had  humanly  become,  in  His  life.  God  was  well 
pleased  with  Him.  That  was  no  commendation  of 
any  mere  fact  of  nature,  human  or  divine.  It  was 
satisfaction  with  His  human  life,  with  what  He  had 
grown  to  be  under  all  the  conditions  and  circumstances 
of  His  earthly  preparation.  And  when  Christianity 
came  finally  to  appraise  and  define  the  divine  sonship 
revealed  in  Him,  that  which  it  saw  in  Him  was  no  fact 
of  mere  nature,  but  the  act  of  His  militant  and  tri- 
umphant life.  It  saw  and  recognized  and  placed  His 
sonship  in  the  perfection  of  His  holiness  and  the  victory 
of  His  life.  He  was  Son,  perfected  forevermore  by 
the  things  He  had  suffered.  He  was  the  Son  of  God 
witli  power,  according  to  the  spirit  of  holiness,  by  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead. 

The  impression  that  Jesus  speaks  habitually  of  the 
universal,  and  therefore  natural,  fatherhood  of  God 
I  have  no  disposition  to  deny  or  to  minimize.  But 
even  that  must  be  modified  by  the  fact  that  for  the 
most  part  those  to  whom  He  speaks  of  their  heavenly 
Father  are  those  whom  He  is  addressing  as  disciples. 
And  on  the  other  hand,  our  Lord  says  very  little  di- 


46         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

rectly  of  men  in  general  as  sons  or  children  of  God. 
Rather  He  urges  us  so  to  be  and  act  that  we  may  become 
sons  or  children  of  God.  He  promises  those  who  are 
of  the  spirit  of  God  that  they  shall  be  called  sons  of 
God.  And  He  even  speaks  in  one  place  of  the  holy 
dead  as  sons  of  God,  being  sons  of  the  resurrection. 

The  disposition  of  a  school  not  merely  of  thought 
but  of  very  deep  and  active  life  in  the  Church  to  bring 
forward  and  emphasize  the  natural  divine  sonship  of 
all  men,  I  not  only  sympathize  with  but  share.  But  I 
do  so  because  I  see  in  it  more  —  or,  rather,  more  be- 
cause I  see  in  it  —  an  evangelical  spirit  than  a  natural 
fact  or  truth.  It  is  a  truth  in  Jesus  rather  than  in 
nature.  What  is  primarily  manifested  to  us  in  Jesus 
Christ  is  God's  essential  disposition,  and  therefore 
His  eternal  purpose,  towards  mankind.  We  see  that 
purpose  not  only  expressed,  but,  as  we  believe,  realized 
for  us  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  Whom  God  fore- 
knew He  foreordained  to  be  conformed  to  the  image 
of  His  Son,  that  He  might  be  the  firstborn  among  many 
brethren.  So  deep  a  hold  has  this  divine  disposition 
and  its  operation  in  the  world  taken  upon  us  through 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  that  it  seems  to  us  now 
almost  a  natural  fact,  and  we  wish  all  men  to  see  it  so, 
and  so  make  it  so.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  all  men 
are  sons  of  God  —  not  by  nature  but  by  grace.  Pro- 
vision is  so  made  in  the  love  and  grace  and  fellowship 
of  God,  which  means  in  Jesus  Christ,  that  all  men  shall 
be  sons  of  God,  that  we  say  that  in  Him  all  men  have 
been  made  and  therefore  are  sons  of  God.  And  so  we 
tell  all  men  that  they  are  sons  of  God  and  have  only  to 


The  Divine  Sonship  of  Humanity      47 

realize  in  order  to  make  it  so.  What  first  came  to  us 
as  a  revelation  of  grace  in  Christ  has  become  so  part 
of  us  that  we  now  hold  and  proclaim  it  as  a  fact  of 
nature  prior  to  Christ. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  stop  here  and  not  go  on  into 
a  later  stage  of  Gospel  representation.  We  have  in 
what  has  been  said  so  far,  and  in  which  we  have  not 
gone  beyond  the  proper  limits  of  the  Synoptics,  the 
ground  of  reality  in  the  divine  sonship  realized  in 
humanity  by  Jesus  Christ  upon  which  the  later  de- 
veloped truth  of  regeneration,  the  necessity  of  a  new 
birth  from  above,  securely  rests.  We  have  seen  that 
even  earthly  sonship  is  not  a  mere  physical  fact,  but  is 
the  product  of  a  second  birth,  the  birth  of  the  idea  in 
the  mind  and  the  heart  and  the  life.  It  is  the  truth 
and  the  spirit  in  the  person  and  not  the  fact  in  the 
nature  that  constitutes  it.  We  might  say  that  it  is 
bom  not  of  the  immanental  natural  nexus  but  of  trans- 
cendental personal  association  and  relationship.  So 
still  more  is  it  with  the  divine  fatherhood  and  sonship. 
The  relation  is  one  still  less  of  physical  fact  and  more 
of  spiritual  act.  It  is  the  birth  of  an  idea,  which  is  a 
divine  truth  and  reality,  in  the  mind  and  the  life.  And 
so  we  say  that  divine  sonship  is  bom  of  the  Word  and 
the  Spirit,  the  Word  being  the  objective  divine  ex- 
pression to  us  of  the  truth  of  sonship,  and  the  Spirit 
the  subjective  divine  realization  in  us  of  the  fact  of 
sonship.  We  could  not  have  been  bom  of  God  in  the 
sense  of  the  new  life  of  humanity  in  Jesus  Christ  with- 
out a  divine  revelation.  By  which  I  mean  a  —  not 
immanental  but  transcendental  —  communication  from 


48         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

without,  from  above,  of  a  Word  and  a  Spirit,  a  Truth, 
and  a  Grace  to  appropriate  it.  We  are  begotten  again 
not  of  corruptible  seed,  not  of  blood,  but  of  incorrupt- 
ible, through  the  word  of  God  which  liveth  and  abideth. 
Jesus  Christ  Himself  is  the  revelation,  the  communica- 
tion from  above  of  the  Truth  and  the  Grace  by  which, 
objectively  to  us  and  subjectively  in  us,  the  eternal  life 
of  God  is  made  ours. 

What  I  have  described  as  a  mere  potentiality  of  son- 
ship,  in  which  our  natural  relation  to  God  consists, 
St.  Paul  treats  as  a  foreordination  or  predestination 
to  sonship.  Of  course  a  predestination  of  God  is  a 
predestination  of  nature.  What  we  are  to  be  in  the 
end  it  must  have  been  our  nature  in  the  beginning  to 
become;  according  to  the  saying  of  Aristotle,  that 
What  a  thing  shall  be  when  its  becoming  has  been 
completed,  that  we  call  the  nature  of  the  thing.  But 
there  is  this  difference,  that  according  to  the  Gospel  of 
Christianity  the  end  of  humanity  is  not  by  immanental 
completion  from  within,  what  we  might  call  natural 
evolution,  but  by  transcendental  addition  from  without. 
We  acquiesce  in  an  absolute  immanental  evolution  of 
things  but  not  of  persons,  because  just  the  distinction 
of  a  person  from  a  thing  consists  in  its  power  to  be  in 
a  relation  of  objective,  transcendental,  relative  inde- 
pendence of  evolution.  What  else  are  consciousness 
and  freedom  and  personality?  How  else  are  there 
such  facts  as  transgression  and  sin,  and  by  conquest 
of  these  holiness  and  righteousness?  Humanity  was 
predestinated  in  the  fulness  of  time  to  something  more 
than  natural  relation  to  God,  —  viz.,  to  personal  asso- 


The  Divine  Sonship  of  Humanity      49 

ciation  with  God.  And  in  this  association  and  inter- 
course, in  objective  union  and  communion  with  God, 
it  was  to  find  its  completion.  But  if  in  the  nature 
of  things  man  was  to  communicate  with  God  objectively, 
it  was  in  the  nature  of  things  that  God  should  com- 
municate with  man  objectively.  There  must  be  the 
descent  of  Word  and  Spirit  from  above,  if  there  was  to 
be  the  answer  and  ascent  of  faith  and  spirituality  from 
below.  Christianity  knows  God,  not  where  it  cannot 
know  Him,  in  His  remoteness  in  Himself,  but  where 
and  as  alone  it  can  know  Him,  in  His  Word  of  revela- 
tion to  it  and  in  His  Spirit  of  participation  and  fellow- 
ship with  it.  And  so  man  was  foreordained  unto 
sonship  to  God  through  Jesus  Christ;  not  by  opera- 
tion or  in  course  of  nature,  but  by  personal  act  of  him- 
self, —  by  act  of  himself  in  conjunction  with  the 
act  of  God  making  him  son  through  Jesus  Christ. 
In  the  birth  from  above  there  is  an  act  of  generation 
and  an  act  of  conception.  The  generation  is  by  the 
Word  which  is  the  sperma  or  seed,  the  conception  is 
by  the  Spirit  which  enables  us  to  receive  the  Word. 
In  other  words,  the  Word  is  the  principle  of  objective 
divine  revelation,  the  Spirit  that  of  subjective  human 
appropriation.  The  Word  aptat  Deum  homini,  the 
Spirit  aptat  hominem,  Deo.  And  so  is  accomplished 
the  uniting  into  one  of  the  life  of  God  and  the  life  of 
man. 

We  have  gone  far  ahead  of  the  representation  to 
which  we  were  to  limit  ourselves  in  this  first  part,  and 
I  return  to  ask  how  much  of  the  truth,  we  may  say  the 
philosophy,  of  all  this  is  to  be  found  already  in  the  bare 


50         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

fact  of  the  realized  divine  sonship  of  Jesus  in  His 
earthly  life.  That  life  viewed  in  its  most  pronounced 
and  acknowledged  humanity  was  far  more  than  hu- 
manity. And  what  more  there  was  in  it,  as  we  think 
and  believe,  the  perfection  of  the  divine  spirit,  the  divine 
nature,  the  divine  life  —  how  was  it  there  ?  Not  by 
consequence  of  any  metaphysical  truth  or  fact  as  to 
His  nature  or  person,  but  by  life-long  act  and  attitude 
of  Himself  humanly  towards  a  corresponding  eternal 
divine  act  and  attitude  towards  Him  as  son  of  man. 
The  divine  fatherhood  was  perfected  in  His  sonship 
by  the  fact  that  His  sonship  perfectly  conceived  and 
realized  or  reproduced  the  divine  fatherhood.  Wlien 
humanity  was  foreordained  to  be  conformed  to  the 
image  of  the  Son  of  God,  that  He  might  be  the  first- 
born among  many  brethren,  and  when  it  was  called  to 
enter  upon  and  fulfil  that  divine  predestination,  what 
was  it  called  to  do  ?  It  was,  in  the  first  place,  to  see, 
what  it  was  impossible  for  it  to  see  without  revelation, 
the  eternally  purposed  and  the  eternally  accomplished 
truth  of  God  in  man  and  man  in  God.  And  then,  it 
was  called  to  be,  what  it  could  never  be  without  the 
inspiration  of  divine  spirit  and  power,  as  perfectly  as 
Jesus  Christ  is  what  Jesus  Christ  is  —  son  of  God. 


rv 

THE  SON  OF  MAN 

The  more  we  examine  into  it  and  ponder  over  it, 
the  more  important  grows  the  question:  Why,  among 
various  designations,  does  Jesus  elect  so  habitually  to 
call  Himself  by  that  of  Son  of  man  ?  It  cannot  be 
merely  because  that  had  been  a  more  or  less  common 
title  applied  to  the  expected  Messiah.  It  was  charac- 
teristic of  Jesus  that  He  was  much  more  concerned 
with  the  realities  of  the  new  than  with  the  figures  of 
the  old  dispensation.  We  are  still  too  apt  to  think  we 
understand  or  have  explained  the  realities  of  the  Gospel 
when  we  show  that  they  express  and  fulfil  some  figure 
of  the  Old  Testament.  The  figure  may  have  adum- 
brated the  fact ;  the  fact  too  much  transcends  the  figure 
to  be  fully  explained  or  adequately  interpreted  by  it. 
We  may  understand  the  Old  Testament  in  the  light  of 
its  fulfilment  in  the  New.  We  cannot  understand  the 
New  in  the  dim  light  of  its  prefiguration  in  the  Old. 
The  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  can  be  seen  and  under- 
stood only  in  the  white  light  of  its  own  utter  and  inde- 
pendent truth.  There  was  a  reason  in  itself  why  our 
Lord  selected  that  term  to  express  or  describe  Himself. 

When  we  come  to  examine  and  compare  all  the  differ- 
ent connections  and  senses  in  which  Jesus  uses  or 

51 


52         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

seems  to  use  the  designation  Son  of  man,  we  do  not 
find  the  answer  to  our  question  so  plain  or  easy.  Evi- 
dently He  means  by  it  to  identify  Himself  in  some  very 
deep  and  universal  way  with  humanity  as  such.  What 
do  we  mean  by  humanity  as  such?  We  may  adven- 
ture a  few  explanations  upon  this  point. 

In  the  first  place,  humanity  as  such  means  humanity 
in  its  simplicity,  its  reality,  its  universality.  As  such, 
humanity  was  not  known  among  those  who  controlled 
its  destinies,  by  its  teachers  and  its  rulers,  in  the  days 
of  our  Lord's  earthly  life.  It  was  buried  and  lost 
under  a  hopeless  weight  of  traditional,  conventional, 
and  artificial  distinctions  and  regulations.  The  insti- 
tution or  the  law,  social,  political,  and  above  all  relig- 
ious, was  everything  and  the  man  was  nothing.  Man 
existed  for  the  established  order,  not  the  established 
order  for  man.  Society,  the  state,  or  the  church  — 
and  they  were  practically  one  —  was  for  itself  or  its 
oflBcial  representatives,  and  man  as  man,  in  his  relation 
to  it,  had  ceased  to  be  considered.  Now,  as  between 
these  two,  Jesus  took  His  position  —  not,  as  we  shall 
see,  on  the  side  of  the  individual  against  the  established 
order,  but  —  in  behalf  of  humanity  against  a  perverted 
established  order.  The  Son  of  man  for  our  sakes 
became  poor;  He  had  not  where  to  lay  His  head;  He 
took  to  Himself  no  special  privilege  of  birth  or  wealth 
or  class  or  office.  He  stood  upon  His  manhood.  And 
the  name  by  which  He  called  Himself  expressed  that 
attitude  towards  existing  conditions.  Son  of  man  had 
indeed  in  Hebrew  usage  become  about  synonymous 
with  man,  but  it  carried  the  little  additional  force  of 


The  Son  of  Man  53 

man  qua  man.  That  which  is  bom  of  man  is  man, 
shares  the  common  nature,  is  to  be  defined  by  the  uni- 
versal predicates.  That  identification  Jesus  had  taken 
upon  Himself;  in  that  universality,  or  commonness 
with  all.  He  knew  and  named  Himself. 

But  that  identification  and  self-designation  had  the 
effect,  in  the  second  place,  of  recognizing  and  em- 
phasizing the  true  nature,  the  dignity  and  value,  of 
bare  manhood  as  such.  There  was  never  a  higher 
vindication  and  expression  of  manhood  than  in  the 
words:  The  sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not 
man  for  the  sabbath.  The  sabbath,  yes,  and  every 
other  natural  or  human  institution.  The  great  truth 
grows  until  it  finds  its  logical  utterance  in  St.  Paul's 
description  of  the  dignity  of  man  in  Christ:  Let  no  one 
glory  in  men  —  that  is,  in  human  dignities  and  dis- 
tinctions. For  all  things  are  yours;  whether  Paul,  or 
Apollos,  or  Cephas,  or  the  world,  or  life,  or  death,  or 
things  present,  or  things  to  come;  all  are  yours;  and  ye 
are  Christ's;  and  Christ  is  God's. 

The  conception  of  the  inherent  dignity  of  humanity, 
universally  recognized  as  owing  so  much  to  the  attitude 
of  Jesus  Christ  towards  it,  has  been  abundantly  vin- 
dicated and  illustrated  by  both  modern  philosophy 
and  science.  Kant  first  demonstrated  the  philosoph- 
ical fact  that  there  can  be  no  "end  in  itself"  which 
cannot  be  an  end  to  itself.  Only  that  which  has  "  being 
for  self,"  which  can  know,  feel,  possess,  enjoy,  or  value 
itself,  can  be  an  end  either  to  itself  or  to  anything  else. 
If  we  ask  what  all  evolution  is  for,  there  is  nothing  else 
in  all  we  can  know  of  evolution  for  which  it  can  be  but 


54         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

man.  It  cannot  be  for  itself  apart  from  man,  because 
apart  from  man  it  has  no  self  for  which  to  be.  It  is 
perfectly  legitimate  to  conclude,  not  only  that  evolu- 
tion as  known  by  science  has  no  further  task  than  the 
further  and  higher  development  of  the  spiritual  or 
personal  qualities  and  destiny  of  man,  but  also  that  if 
from  the  beginning  there  was  any  end  or  purpose  in 
evolution  at  all,  that  was  it.  Some  such  philosophic 
and  scientific  cosmical  conception  as  this,  we  shall  see, 
underlay  the  entire  New  Testament  interpretation  of 
itself. 

In  the  third  place.  Son  of  man  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus 
carries  with  it  the  idea  not  only  of  universal  meaning 
and  of  inherent  dignity,  but  also  of  self-realization. 
The  true  Son  of  man  is  He  who  has  properly  conceived 
and  realized  His  manhood.  By  assuming  to  Himself 
the  title  Jesus  assumes  that  He  has  done  this.  The 
Son  of  man  is  Lord  of  the  sabbath.  This  He  could 
claim  only  for  Himself  individually.  He  as  man  was 
above  the  sabbath,  above  the  law,  above  the  temple, 
above  every  natural  or  human  institution,  —  why .'' 
Because  He  was  the  attained  and  accomplished  end 
for  which  they  were  all  instituted.  There  are  two 
errors  against  which  we  have  very  carefully  to  guard 
ourselves.  The  first  is  the  idea  that  Jesus  set  Himself 
against  the  established  order,  against  outward  institu- 
tions, as  such.  He  was  the  furthest  from  doing  this. 
What  He  did  set  Himself  against  was  the  sin  of  an 
order  or  an  institution,  divinely  established  to  serve 
an  end,  setting  up  itself  as  the  end;  sacrificing  the  true 
end  to  itself  instead  of  itself  to  the  end;  reversing  the 


The  Son  of  Man  55 

divine  law  by  being  in  this  world  to  be  served  instead 
of  to  serve.  He  did  not  object  to  the  visible  temple. 
The  zeal  of  it  even  ate  Him  up.  What  He  did  object 
to  was  that  His  Father's  house  which  was  to  have  been 
a  house  of  prayer  had  been  converted  into  a  den  of 
thieves,  that  men  were  making  merchandise  for  them- 
selves out  of  what  had  been  instituted  for  the  service 
of  God.  Every  ordinance  of  God  was  God  to  Him. 
He  was  indignant  not  at  the  consecration  of  means  to 
ends,  but  at  their  desecration  to  other  ends  or  at  their 
blasphemous  elevation  into  ends  in  themselves.  And 
so  the  second  error  against  which  we  need  to  guard 
ourselves  is  the  thought  that  even  Jesus  in  His  humanity 
could  have  been  above  the  sabbath  or  above  the  law 
any  otherwise  than  through  having  obeyed  and  ful- 
filled them.  Nothing  can  dispense  us  from  the  humble 
and  devout  use  of  divine  means  except  the  fact  of  hav- 
ing through  their  appointed  use  as  means  attained 
the  ends  for  which  they  were  instituted.  This  was 
wonderfully  illustrated  by  our  Lord's  own  acts  and 
attitude  throughout  His  life.  He  submitted  to  every 
ordinance  of  man  or  God,  except  when  it  was  possible 
for  Him  to  honour  its  spirit  only  by  violating  its  letter. 
When  He  said.  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy 
the  law ;  I  am  come  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil,  there 
was  included  in  that  purpose  not  only  the  law  in  any 
higher  sense  but  the  Jewish  law  in  every  essential 
detail.  Not  only  had  He  been  Himself  circumcised 
but  He  rose  above  and  beyond  the  fact  of  outward 
circumcision  only  by  fulfilling  its  inward  meaning  and 
purpose.     So  St.  Paul  and  others,  although  Jews,  felt 


56         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

themselves  absolved  from  the  obligation  of  circum- 
cision, not  because  it  was  an  outward  ordinance,  but 
because  in  that  as  in  ever}'^  other  respect  they  felt  them- 
selves "fulfilled  in  Christ;  in  whom  they  had  been 
circumcised  with  the  circumcision  made  without  hands, 
in  the  putting  off  of  the  body  of  the  flesh,  in  the  circum- 
cision of  Christ."  The  law  of  sacrifice  was  abrogated 
only  through  the  true  sacrifice  once  for  all,  in  which  all 
the  meaning  and  the  truth  of  sacrifice  is  forever  ex- 
pressed and  fulfilled.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  end  of  the 
law  for  righteousness,  not  because  there  was  or  is  not 
the  need  of  a  law  of  righteousness,  but  because  He  is 
the  righteousness  for  which  the  law  exists. 

In  pursuing  our  reflections  upon  the  senses  in  which 
our  Lord  used  the  term  Son  of  man  or  rather  perhaps  in 
this  case  the  sentiments  or  impulses  which  uncon- 
sciously led  Him  to  take  it  to  Himself,  we  might  make 
a  fourth  point  of  the  following.  Indeed  it  is  involved 
in  what  has  been  already  said,  and  only  needs  a  little 
more  emphasis.  Jesus  we  say  was  the  enemy  of  all 
mere  formality  or  conventionality,  which  was  to  Him 
hypocrisy.  But  it  was  not  the  mere  hypocrisy  that  so 
deeply  troubled  Him.  It  was  the  inhumanity  under- 
lying it  that  moved  Him  to  the  depths.  They  watched 
Him  on  a  certain  occasion  to  see  whether  He  would  heal 
on  the  sabbath  day;  that  they  might  accuse  Him. 
Perceiving  their  thoughts.  He  puts  to  them  the  direct 
question,  Is  it  lawful  to  do  good  on  the  sabbath  day? 
When  they  held  their  peace,  He  looked  round  about 
upon  them  with  anger,  and  then  bade  the  man  stand  up 
and  be  healed.     But  his  anger  was  not  at  their  legalism 


The  Son  oj  Man  57 

in  making  so  much  of  mere  outward  observance.  St, 
Mark  gives  a  deeper  reading  of  His  heart.  He  was 
grieved  at  the  hardening  of  their  heart.  What  man  is 
there  of  you,  He  asks,  —  and  there  is  in  the  Greek  an 
evident  emphasis  upon  the  use  of  the  word  man  — 
Who  is  there  among  you  with  the  heart  of  a  man, 
that  shall  have  a  sheep,  and  if  it  fall  into  a  pit  on  the 
sabbath  day,  will  he  not  lay  hold  upon  it  and  lift  it  out  ? 
How  much  is  a  man  of  more  value  than  a  sheep !  Where- 
fore it  is  lawful  to  do  good  on  the  sabbath  day.  It  is 
not  hypocrisy  but  inhumanity  that  grieves  Him ;  except 
that  all  hypocrisy,  all  unreality,  all  shallowness  or 
stopping  short  of  the  deep  meaning  and  truth  of  things, 
is  selfisliness  and  inhumanity.  Reality  is  humanity, 
because  it  is  love  and  service  and  sacrifice. 

I  said,  under  the  third  head  just  above,  that  our 
Lord,  in  taking  to  Himself  the  title  Son  of  man,  at  once 
identified  Himself  with  all  humanity  and  distinguished 
Himself  from  it.  He  is  the  truth  of  it,  and  so  is  Lord 
of  all  that  pertains  to  its  life.  When  He  says,  as  He 
does.  That  ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  man  hath 
power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins,  I  do  not  think  He  is 
merely  claiming  for  humanity  at  large  the  divine 
right  and  function  of  mercy  and  forgiveness.  His 
words  have  reference  to  His  own  Messianic  mission, 
which  was,  as  we  shall  see,  by  the  taking  or  put- 
ting away  of  sin,  to  bring  humanity  to  God,  and 
so  bring  it  to  itself.  From  the  beginning  of  His  min- 
istry of  humanity  He  had  exhibited  His  skill  and  power 
to  deal  with  human  ills.  He  began  with  the  ills  most 
in  evidence,  those  of  the  body.     But  He  was  not  to 


58         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

stop  with  or  upon  these.  His  axe  was  to  be  laid  at  the 
root  of  all  ill.  We  cannot  suppose  that  the  permanent 
ministry  of  Christ  and  of  Christianity  was  to  be  the 
immediate  healing,  without  the  use  of  human  means, 
of  the  physical  or  natural  ills  of  the  world.  His  min- 
istry began  with  these  because  it  was  only  through  the 
diseases  of  the  body  that  He  could  reach  those  of  the 
soul.  But  His  power  to  heal  the  former  was  only  a 
parable  of  His  power  to  heal  the  latter.  That  ye  may 
know  that  the  Son  of  man  hath  power  on  earth  to  for- 
give sins  —  then  saith  He  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy, 
Arise,  take  up  thy  bed  and  walk.  Christianity  is 
humanity,  and  must  therefore  deal  with  all  ill  that  is 
human.  It  must  even  deal  in  many  respects  with 
physical  evils  before  it  can  touch  the  springs  of  spiritual 
and  moral  evil.  But  its  real  mission  and  function  is  to 
reach  and  heal  the  natural  through  the  spiritual  and 
the  moral.  Its  permanent  method  is  to  treat  causes 
rather  than  symptoms.  If  I  should  attempt  to  explain 
humanly  the  distinctively  human  right  and  power  of 
Jesus  to  forgive  or  to  take  away  sin,  it  would  be  some- 
what on  the  following  lines.  The  inherent  right  to 
represent  God  depends  upon  the  extent  to  which  we 
inherently  represent  Him.  If  one  through  perfect 
actual  realization  of  the  divine  fatherhood  should  per- 
fectly realize  his  own  sonship,  he  would  be  no  longer 
only  a  servant  in  his  Father's  house.  He  would  be  a 
son,  entitled  to  speak  in  his  father's  name  and  with 
his  father's  authority.  When  the  son  has  reproduced 
the  father's  spirit  and  embodied  the  father's  law,  then 
he   has   not   only   authority   but   commandment   and 


The  Son  of  Man  59 

obligation  to  express  and  administer  his  father's  will. 
In  the  perfection  of  His  humanity,  Jesus  Christ  was 
upon  this  earth  as  God.  And  that  perhaps  is  the  ex- 
planation why,  even  before  His  advent,  the  Messiah  of 
the  Old  Testament,  while  always  man,  is  often  spoken 
of  in  terms  of,  and  interchangeably  with,  God  Him- 
self. There  is  perhaps  a  yet  deeper  truth  involved  in 
that  of  the  Son  of  man.  This,  namely:  That,  if  God 
is  ever  to  be  spiritually  and  personally  in  the  world  at 
all,  it  will  be  only  through  the  Son  of  man;  that  is  to 
say,  through  the  growing  divinity  of  man.  It  will  be 
consummated  when  the  Son  of  man  shall  be  Humanity. 
The  divine  Father  of  all  can  be  in  all  only  as  all  realize 
or  actualize  the  divine  sonship.  But  the  great  truth 
of  our  Lord's  relation  to  the  taking  away  of  sin,  and 
so  at-oneing  humanity  with  God,  belongs  to  a  later 
stage  of  our  inquiries. 

In  the  next  place,  our  Lord  speaks  most  pointedly 
of  Himself  as  Son  of  man  in  those  connections  in  which 
He  is  foretelling  those  most  human  experiences  of  the 
trials  and  afflictions  that  await  Him,  and  also  of  His 
own  victory  over  them,  —  especially.  His  death  and 
resurrection.  In  a  certain  place  (Romans  5:  1-5)  St. 
Paul  tells  us,  in  view  of  what  has  happened  in  Christ 
Jesus,  that  we  ought  as  Christians  to  do  three  things: 
We  ought  to  be  at  present  peace  with  God,  with  whom 
by  faith  we  see  ourselves  eternally  at  one.  We  ought 
to  rejoice  in  hope  of  that  actual  and  entire  identifica- 
tion with  God  which  shall  be  our  final  glory.  And  if 
these  two,  then  ought  we  also  to  glory  in  the  tribula- 
tions by  which  He  became,  and  we  also  shall  become. 


60         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

what  He  is.  There  is  nothing  our  Lord  so  insists 
upon  as  the  necessary  relation  of  the  Son  of  man  to 
the  things  He  suffered.  It  became  God,  we  may  say 
reverently  that  it  was  necessary  for  God,  in  bringing 
many  sons  to  glory,  to  perfect  the  captain  of  their 
salvation  through  suffering. 

And  finally,  and  perhaps  most  strikingly  of  all,  it  is 
impossible  for  any  criticism  to  sever  our  Lord's  own 
conception  of  Himself  as  Son  of  man  from  the  truth  in 
His  mind  of  His  second  advent,  His  perpetual  coming 
in  the  world,  and  the  great  final  coming  to  judge  the 
world.  It  is  in  metaphysical  and  logical  sequence  with 
all  that  has  gone  before,  that  St.  John  should  represent 
our  Lord  as  describing  the  two  great  functions  of  the 
Son  of  man  as  giving  life,  or  raising  the  dead,  and 
executing  judgment.  He  Himself  discharges  these 
two  functions  because  He  is  Son  of  man.  As  the  divine 
end  of  humanity,  its  truth  and  reality  and  therefore  its 
predestination,  it  belonged  to  Him  not  only  to  have 
come  but  to  be  always  coming.  It  was  His  right  to 
foresee  not  only  His  true  coming  begin  soon  after  His 
apparent  departure,  but  His  complete  coming  con- 
summated in  a  great  and  universal  final  Advent.  And 
in  the  very  nature  of  it  His  coming  is  a  perpetual  and 
an  everlasting  act  or  process  of  divine  judgment.  He 
came  not  into  the  world  to  condemn  the  world,  but  to 
give  life  to  the  world.  His  proper  function  is  life- 
giving,  a  life-giving  that  is  both  resurrection  and  re- 
generation. But  if  God  sent  not  His  Son  into  the 
world  to  judge  but  only  to  save  it,  it  cannot  but  be  that 
His  coming  is  in  itself  a  judgment.     He  that  believeth 


The  Son  of  Man  61 

on  Him  is  not  judged,  but  he  that  believeth  not  is 
judged  already,  because  he  hath  not  believed  on  the 
name  of  the  only  begotten  Son  of  God.  And  this  is 
the  judgment,  that  men  loved  the  darkness  rather  than 
the  light.  We  cannot  get  around  that  reasoning.  In 
some  form  or  other,  in  some  terms  or  other,  it  will 
always  be  coming  home  to  us.  Stripped  of  all  conven- 
tional or  ecclesiastical  language,  Jesus  Christ  means 
to  every  human  being  the  truth,  the  reality,  the  worth 
and  the  blessedness  of  himself.  That  is  always  with 
him  or  before  him  for  acceptance  or  rejection,  for 
realization  or  ruin.  All  human  life  is  judgment,  which 
is  primarily  only  separation  between  those  who  are 
and  those  who  are  not,  those  who  do  and  those  who  do 
not  —  what  it  is  appointed  for  all  in  life  to  be  and  to 
do.  If  to  live,  to  be  ourselves,  to  do  our  part,  is  appro- 
bation, justification,  blessedness,  what  can  failure  to 
do  these  be  but  reprobation,  condemnation,  and 
wretchedness  ? 

The  truth  that  final  judgment  is  to  be  by  the  Son  of 
man  carries  this  further  thought.  Nothing  is  said  in 
the  New  Testament  of  a  divine  wrath  against  sinful- 
ness as  a  universal  fact  or  condition.  Nothing  is  said 
of  a  final  condemnation  of  human  transgression  of  the 
divine  law.  It  is  recognized  that  by  nature  we  cannot 
but  be  sinners.  It  is  recognized  that  our  highest  de- 
votion to  and  aspiration  after  the  law  of  God  is  weak 
through  our  human  flesh. 

There  is  infinite  pity  and  compassion,  infinite  mercy 
and  forgiveness,  for  sinners.  Our  Lord,  or  St.  Paul, 
or  St.  John  after  Him,  have  no  condemnation  for  sin- 


62         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

ners.  All  their  condemnation  is  for  those  who  are  not 
sinners,  who  do  not  know  themselves  to  be  such,  who 
do  not  know  in  themselves  what  it  is  to  be  such,  who 
will  not  to  be,  and  will  not  be,  saved  from  their  sin. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 

Although  both  John  the  Baptist  and  Jesus  came  in 
succession  preaching  in  identical  terms  the  kingdom 
of  God,  yet  they  preached  it  and  meant  it  in  a  very 
different  spirit.  So  much  so  that  John  to  the  last 
found  it  hard  to  recognize  what  he  had  himself  prepared 
for  in  his  successor.  When  he  sent  from  his  prison  to 
inquire  of  Jesus  whether  He  were  indeed  he  that 
should  come,  or  were  they  to  look  for  another,  Jesus 
answered  him  with  signs  of  the  kingdom,  but  it  is  by 
no  means  certain  that  those  signs  would  satisfy  John. 
He  was  cast  in  a  severer  and  more  legal  mould.  Jesus, 
while  taking  occasion,  on  the  departure  of  the  mes- 
sengers, to  speak  in  the  highest  possible  terms  of  John 
as  a  prophet  and  representative  of  the  old  dispensation, 
seems  to  recognize  that  he  had  not  been  born  anew  of 
the  spirit,  or  bom  into  the  new  spirit,  and  so  after  all 
his  preparation  for  the  kingdom  of  God  had  not  truly 
seen  or  entered  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  He  was  the 
friend  of  the  bridegroom,  who  had  prepared  the  bride 
for  the  heavenly  nuptials,  but  he  did  not  witness  the 
union.  And  so  Jesus  declares  that  he  who  within  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  least  was  greater  than  John. 

The  kingdom  of  God  must  therefore  be  something 
63 


64  The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

very  definite  and  verj'  positive.  And  yet  from  Jesus' 
own  preaching  of  it  we  find  it  very  difiicult  to  define  it 
positively.  Perhaps  in  this  respect  too  the  kingdom 
of  God  was  to  come  "  without  observation,"  not  in  word 
but  in  deed,  to  be  seen  and  judged  only  in  its  fruits. 
We  must  therefore,  as  before,  collect  its  meaning  and 
frame  our  definition  of  it  as  best  we  may  from  the  whole 
tenor  of  our  Lord's  teaching  and  action. 

We  might  say  in  general  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
simply  and  literally  what  the  words  express,  not  any- 
thing of  God  but  God  Himself  in  humanity.  But  if 
we  should  agree  upon  this,  we  should  at  once  disagree 
upon  what  this  means.  With  many  it  would  mean  no 
more  than  the  prevalence  and  influence  within  each 
man  of  his  own  subjective  conception  of  God.  With 
others  who  have  more  of  the  sense  of  God  as  One  with 
whom  we  may  hold  objective  relations,  the  kingdom 
of  God  will  be  an  actual  presence  and  operation  of 
God  in  us,  as  we  say,  by  His  Spirit.  And  still  others 
may  go  the  whole  length  of  holding  the  kingdom  of  God 
to  be  that  permanent  and  eternal  incarnation  of  God 
in  humanity  which  we  see  not  only  realized  in  the  in- 
dividual person  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  to  be  consummated 
in  the  universal  humanity  of  which  He  is  the  head. 
Leaving  then  for  the  present  so  general  a  definition  as 
that,  let  us  examine  the  matter  more  in  detail. 

Is  it  possible  that  that  which  was  John's  stumbling' 
block  in  the  ministry  of  Jesus  was  that  it  seemed  to 
him  to  lack  positiveness  and  decision;  that  there  was 
not  enough  in  it  of  the  Law  which  he  knew,  and  too 
much  of  the  Gospel  which  he  could  not  understand? 


The  Kingdom  of  God  65 

John's  kingdom  was  the  kingdom  of  righteousness, 
Christ's  the  kingdom  of  mercy  and  goodness.  There 
are  many  evidences  of  this  in  the  very  different  atti- 
tude of  Jesus  from  that  of  John  in  His  deahng  with  the 
actual  sins  of  actual  men  and  women.  One  would  say 
from  this  point  of  view  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  the 
spirit  of  God  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ  as  pure  Good- 
ness, —  that  is  to  say,  as  pure  love  and  mercy  and 
forgiveness.  This  is  manifested  from  the  beginning 
in  the  impression  of  Jesus  as  one  who  went  about  doing 
good;  in  His  profoundly  sympathetic  response  to  the 
appeal  of  every  form  of  human  misery;  in  His  declara- 
tion of  His  mission  as  Son  of  man  to  seek  and  to  save 
that  which  was  lost;  in  His  consorting  with  publicans 
and  sinners  rather  than  with  the  righteous  and  the  rich. 
And  surely  as  we  saw  that  our  Lord's  chosen  designa- 
tion was  Son  of  man,  so  we  may  say  that  the  essence  of 
His  religion  was  humanity. 

We  cannot  say  truly  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
goodness,  unless  we  know  clearly  what  goodness  is. 
Jesus  naturally  met  evil  on  the  outside,  and  so  He  ad- 
dressed Himself  first  to  the  evils  of  the  body  and  of  the 
outward  condition.  But  that  was  not  His  end  or  aim. 
Missionaries  to  the  slums  of  a  great  city  or  to  a  crowded 
foreign  heathen  population  might  go  first  with  relief 
funds  and  appliances,  with  hospitals  and  improved 
sanitation  and  healthier  and  more  decent  methods  of 
dressing  and  living.  It  is  Christian  to  do  so  because 
Christianity  is  humanity  wherever  or  however  applied. 
But  humanity  that  goes  no  further  than  that  is  not 
Christianity.     Christianity  is  not  Christianity  until  it 


66         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

is  applying  its  axe  to  the  root  of  the  evil  and  the 
wretchedness  of  the  world,  until  its  business  is  with  sin 
and  with  God's  salvation  from  sin.  It  is  not  the  Gospel 
nor  the  kingdom  of  God  nor  salvation  to  men  that  they 
shall  be  made  the  objects  only  of  all  the  mercy  and  the 
goodness  of  the  universe.  Nothing  can  be  done  merely 
to  us  or  for  us  that  will  save  us.  To  be  loved,  to  be 
sympathized  with  and  helped,  to  be  shown  mercy  and 
forgiven,  to  be  the  objects  of  the  most  unconditional 
divine  grace,  are  a  very  great  deal.  But  these  are 
the  merest  circumstances  of  human  salvation,  they 
are  not  salvation  itself.  No  one  saw  more  clearly 
than  our  Lord  that  life  and  blessedness  is  not  in 
what  is  done  to  us,  but  only  in  what  we  ourselves 
are  and  do.  He  did  not  mean  the  story  of  the 
Prodigal  Son  to  be  to  us  the  beginning  and  the  end 
of  the  Gospel.  At  least,  He  did  not  unless  we  include 
in  its  teaching  not  only  the  perfect  and  unconditional 
love  and  goodness  of  the  father,  but,  as  the  consequence, 
not  cause  of  that,  the  complete  repentance  and  self- 
restoration  of  the  son.  The  goodness  of  God  leadeth 
us  unto  repentance.  Nothing  else  can  so  lead  us  to 
repentance  or  can  make  repentance  so  effectual  unto 
salvation;  but  it  is  our  repentance  and  what  comes 
of  it  in  ourselves  that  constitutes  and  is  our  salva- 
tion. Therefore,  Jesus  quickly  and  decisively  passes 
from  the  consideration  of  men  as  the  mere  recipients 
or  objects  of  the  goodness  of  God,  of  which  He 
was  the  almoner,  to  the  higher  thought  of  them  as 
the  subjects  of  the  divine  goodness,  as  partakers 
and  sharers  of  the  divine  spirit  and  nature  and  life 


The  Kingdom  of  God  67 

of  love  and  goodness.  The  creditor  who  owed  ten 
thousand  talents  could  by  no  possibility  have  dis- 
charged the  debt,  and  his  lord  had  compassion  on  him 
and  freely  forgave  him  all.  But  when  that  same  ser- 
vant showed  no  mercy  to  the  fellow-servant  who  owed 
him  an  hundred  pence,  what  was  become  of  the  mercy 
and  goodness  that  had  been  shown  him?  We  can  be 
recipients  only  as  we  are  sharers  and  dispensers  of  the 
grace  of  God.  And  that  is  not  an  arbitrary  condition 
upon  God's  part.  All  that  God  has  to  give  is,  in  the 
nature  of  it,  capable  of  being  received  and  possessed 
and  enjoyed  only  as  it  is  used.  And  it  can  be  used  as 
God  uses  it  only  as  it  is  used,  not  for  ourselves,  but 
upon  all  in  the  measure  of  their  claim  upon  us.  How 
otherwise  is  it  possible  to  have  and  to  employ  and  to 
enjoy  God's  spirit  and  nature,  and  life  of  love  and  grace 
and  goodness  ? 

All  that  God  has  to  give  us  is  goodness,  because 
properly  understood  that  is  all  that  God  is  Himself. 
And  goodness  is  ah  initio,  not  only  what  we  are  in  our- 
selves and  do  of  ourselves,  but  what  we  are  and  do  to 
others  than  ourselves.  But  there  is  no  exaggerated 
or  impracticable  unselfishness  or  altruism  in  that.  As 
we  have  before  pointed  out,  goodness  is  our  own  and 
our  only  good.  A  man's  true  pleasure  or  happiness 
or  blessedness  or  good  is  to  be  found  in  the  abundance 
of  his  life,  which  means  in  the  abundance  of  what  he  is 
and  does.  And  what  can  he  be  or  do  except  in  relation 
and  interchange  with  others,  in  mutual  offices  of  love 
and  goodness  ?  The  whole  tenor  of  our  Lord's  teach- 
ing and  example  is  to  the  effect  that  the  res  or  matter 


68         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

of  our  salvation  is  not  in  what  God  is  to  us  or  does  for 
us,  but  in  the  result  of  that  upon  and  in  ourselves.  It 
is  not  the  being  loved  but  the  loving  with  a  divine  love 
that  is  our  salvation.  It  is  not  the  receiving  but  the 
showing  mercy,  not  our  being  forgiven  but  our  forgiving, 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  concerned  about,  not  because  God 
is  in  want  of,  in  the  sense  of  lacking,  what  we  are  or  can 
do,  but  because  He  knows  that  that  alone  is  what  we 
want  or  lack.  We  do  not  take  sufficient  account  of 
the  inseparable  condition  attached  to  all  God's  gifts  of 
grace.  We  can  receive  freely  only  what  we  give  freely, 
and  the  blessing  contained  and  intended  in  the  gift  is 
to  be  found  by  us  not  in  the  freely  receiving  but  in  the 
freely  using  and  giving.  We  need  pray  to  be  forgiven 
our  debts  only  as  we  forgive  our  debtors.  For  if  we 
forgive  not,  neither  does  our  heavenly  Father  forgive 
us.  Blessed  are  they  that  show  mercy,  for  they  shall 
receive  mercy. 

The  kingdom  of  God,  then,  is  not  a  kingdom  of  good- 
ness as  too  many  of  us  understand  goodness.  It  is  a 
kingdom  not  of  absolute  and  unconditioned  mercy 
shown  to  us,  but  of  divine  and  therefore  unconditioned 
mercy  and  goodness  exercised  by  us.  In  other  words, 
it  is  a  kingdom  not  only  of  goodness  but  of  righteous- 
ness, or  rather  of  the  unity  and  identity  of  these.  John 
the  Baptist  need  not  have  feared  that  Jesus  was  going 
to  compromise  or  relax  the  law.  He  was  going  to 
magnify  it.  Except  your  new  righteousness  of  grace. 
He  was  to  say  to  His  disciples,  shall  exceed  the  old 
righteousness  of  law,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.     He  was  not  to  lower  the  standard  of 


The  Kingdom  of  God  69 

personal  perfection,  but  to  raise  it  to  its  limit  in  infinity: 
Be  ye  perfect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect.  He 
was  not  by  what  so  many  of  us  call  goodness  to  put  up 
with  human  imperfection,  to  condone  human  weak- 
ness, to  let  down  the  demands  of  human  obligation 
and  responsibility.  But  He  was  to  effect  a  higher  pur- 
pose and  accomplish  a  higher  result  in  the  matter  of 
all  these,  not  by  the  old  impossible  method  of  exacting 
a  righteousness  that  could  not  be  rendered,  but  by  the 
new  and  practicable  method  of  imparting  a  righteous- 
ness which  could  be  received,  and  which  could  and 
should  be  none  the  less  our  righteousness  because  not 
ours  but  God's  in  us.  That  the  spirit  that  I  am  now 
of,  the  new  nature  into  which  I  have  grown,  the  life  I 
live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  are  all  not  mine 
but  God's  who  lives  in  me,  makes  them  none  the  less 
mine  who  also  live  in  God. 

The  point  is  that  the  desire  to  make  the  Gospel  a 
gospel  of  goodness,  so  called,  shown  to  us,  and  not  of 
righteousness  to  the  utmost  required  of  us,  is  the  com- 
pletest  possible  travesty  and  contradiction  of  goodness. 
The  world  is  slowly  educating  up  to  the  point  of  seeing 
that  the  worst  unkindness  to  a  rational  and  free  per- 
sonality is  the  kindness  of  ministering  a  natural  or 
physical  good  at  the  expense  to  him  of  moral  or  spiritual, 
by  which  we  mean  personal,  good.  A  man's  life  is  not 
in  the  abundance  of  the  things  he  possesses,  but  in  him- 
self. If  in  increasing  his  possessions  we  diminish  him, 
we  have  wrought  him  the  worst  injury  in  our  power. 
The  highest  mercy  to  a  man  is  to  spare  him  no  require- 
ment of  his  own  manhood.     God  spared  not  His  own 


70         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

Son,  but  gave  Him  up  to  all  that  earth  or  hell  could  do 
against  Him.  To  have  spared  Him  whatsoever  of  His 
humiliation  would  have  been  to  rob  Him  of  just  so 
much  of  His  exaltation.  The  kingdom  of  God,  then, 
is  not  weakness.  It  is  no  weakness  in  God,  no  lower- 
ing of  His  demand  upon  us  to  return  to  Him  with  the 
nswYy  of  actuality  all  that  He  has  committed  to  us  in 
potentiality,  no  sparing  us  any  jot  or  tittle  of  the  labor 
or  the  pain  that,  if  we  are  to  be  made  at  all,  must  of 
necessity  go  to  the  making  of  us.  And  therefore, 
equally,  it  is  no  weakness  for  us.  So  far  from  God's 
purpose  in  Christ  being  to  do  anything  for  us  or  in- 
stead of  us  which  therefore  we  are  not  to  do  ourselves, 
it  is  a  call  to  us  to  be  all,  to  do  all,  and  to  suffer  all  that 
Jesus  Christ  Himself  is,  did,  or  suffered.  If  we  are  to 
be  near  Him  in  His  kingdom,  we  must  have  drunk  the 
cup  that  He  drank  and  been  baptized  with  the  baptism 
that  He  was  baptized  withal.  We  must  have  died  the 
death  He  died  and  attained  the  resurrection  that  He 
accomplished. 

The  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son  may  be  used  to  illus- 
trate the  whole  method  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  We 
will  confine  ourselves  to  the  most  general  application 
of  it  as  giving  an  account  of  the  return,  reconciliation, 
and  restoration  of  the  soul  that  has  been  far  separated 
from  God  by  sin.  The  thing  to  be  illustrated  is  not  a 
material  separation  or  one  of  outward  space  and  con- 
dition. It  is  an  alienation,  a  drifting  apart,  of  mind 
and  character  and  life,  a  long  widening  and  far  widened 
breach  of  spiritual  sympathy  and  personal  unity. 
What  the  son  is  brought  to  and  experiences  in  the  far 


The  Kingdom  of  God  71 

country  is  not  the  straits  and  discomforts  of  physical 
poverty,  but  the  inherent  consequences,  the  evil  and 
the  wretchedness,  of  sin.  Sin  is  an  evil  not  only 
spiritual  and  moral  but  also  natural;  and  what  he  felt 
first  was  doubtless  the  natural  ills  into  which  he  had 
sunk.  But  whatever  he  wished,  what  he  wanted  was 
not  relief  merely  from  these.  The  story  would  never 
have  been  told  if  its  end  had  been  restoration  only  to 
that.  The  restoration  was  not  to  outward  conditions 
but  to  himself,  and  that  through  reconciliation  or 
spiritual  at-one-ment  with  the  father  and  the  home. 
How  was  that  internal  and  essential  reunion  to  be  ac- 
complished .''  The  natural  first  answer  would  be 
through  the  self-reformation  and  conversion  of  the  son. 
The  change  away  having  been  his  alone,  the  change 
back  must  be  equally  his  own.  Certainly,  the  father 
alone  could  not  effect  the  reconciliation,  whatever 
might  be  his  disposition.  In  the  thing  to  be  illustrated, 
what  is  wanted  is  the  change  or  conversion  of  the  son 
himself.  But  suppose  that,  as  is  the  case,  such  a 
spiritual  self-restoration  is  a  natural  and  a  moral  im- 
possibility. That  can  only  mean  that  salvation  is  an 
impossibility.  And  so  it  is,  of  the  son  and  by  the  son 
himself.  If  it  is  to  be  accomplished  it  must  be  by 
the  father  and  the  son  in  co-operation.  And  that 
co-operation  must  depend  upon  a  personal  attitude  or 
disposition  towards  it  on  both  sides.  On  the  part  of 
the  son  it  is  not  amiss  that  the  most  outward  experiences 
of  the  wretched  consequences  of  his  sin  should  first 
awake  his  consciousness  of  loss  and  want.  But  the 
matter  would  not  go  far  if  that  did  not  lead  further. 


72         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

to  remorse  and  repentance  and  the  desire  not  only  to 
restore  his  condition  but  to  recover  himself.  This  in 
turn  could  not  but  lead  to  the  consciousness  that  as  it 
was  he  who  had  sinned,  so  it  must  be  he  who  should 
put  away  his  sin.  The  obligation  of  his  own  part  in 
the  matter  surely  could  not  be  felt  too  strongly.  The 
law  must  press  its  claims,  and  he  must  feel  those  claims 
to  the  very  uttermost.  It  is  only  after  he  has  tested  to 
the  limit  the  possibilities  of  the  law,  or  his  own  possi- 
bilities under  the  law  —  that  is  to  say,  after  he  has 
fully  proved  his  own  wUl  to  save  himself  —  that  he  is 
prepared  for  further  and  other  conditions  of  salvation. 
In  the  case  of  our  heavenly  Father  we  do  not  know 
how  far  His  providence  and  prevenient  grace  is  oper- 
ative in  our  own  least  and  earliest  part  in  the  process, 
but  certainly  our  part  must  be  there.  We  must  have 
felt  the  law  and  tested  our  own  will  and  strength  to 
obey  it  before  His  grace  can  intervene.  ^Tien  we  have 
come,  or  have  been  brought  —  or  properly,  both  —  to 
that  point,  then  may  be  revealed  to  us  the  beginnings 
of  His  part  in  the  matter.  I  say  then,  for  nothing  can 
be  revealed  to  us  until  we  are  prepared  to  apprehend 
and  receive  it.  The  philosophy  of  God's  part  may  be 
expressed  by  a  return  to  the  illustration  of  the  parable. 
What  could  never  have  come  to  the  son  through  the 
law  of  himself  can  and  does  come  to  him  in  the  end 
through  the  grace  of  the  father.  Taken  back  at  once 
and  completely,  just  as  he  was,  into  his  father's  heart 
and  home,  all  his  sin  and  shame  as  though  it  was  not 
and  had  never  been,  himself  in  the  best  robe  and  with 
the  ring  of  perfect  not  only  reconciliation  but  eternal 


The  Kingdom  of  God  73 

union  upon  his  hand,  treated  as  though  he  were  already 
all  that  his  father's  son  should  be,  what  effect  would 
all  that  love  and  grace,  all  that  fulness  of  fellowship 
and  that  atmosphere  of  goodness,  have  upon  the  son  ? 
It  would  deepen  his  remorse  and  increase  his  penitence, 
but  it  would  go  far  beyond  that.  The  perfect  faith 
and  trust  in  the  father's  restoration  of  him  to  sonship 
would  give  him  heart  for  and  hope  in  his  own  inner 
restoration  to  sonship.  The  objective  fact  would 
create  the  subjective  spirit,  and  day  by  day  he  would 
not  only  be  in  faith  and  hope,  but  be  becoming  in  spirit 
and  reality,  more  and  more  the  son  of  his  father. 

If  such  is  the  rationale  of  the  only  possible  true  recon- 
ciliation and  restoration  to  union  of  earthly  father  and 
son,  why  shall  it  not  be  the  true  image  and  shadow  of 
the  reconciliation  we  so  sorely  need  with  our  Father  in 
heaven  ?  To  come  back  to  Him  is  to  come  back  to  our 
real  selves.  But  however,  eternally  complete  in  Him 
are  all  the  conditions  for  our  return;  however  our  sin 
has  quenched  none  of  His  love,  nor  abated  aught  of 
the  readiness  or  the  sufficiency  of  His  grace;  however 
He  waits  to  receive  us  back  into  full  fellowship  with 
Himself  and  to  make  our  sins  as  though  they  had 
never  been,  —  still  even  He  can  go  no  further  unless 
there  be  in  us  the  will  and  the  purpose  to  arise  and 
come  to  Him,  not  alone  for  the  betterment  of  our  state, 
but  for  the  complete  and  perfect  moral,  spiritual,  and 
personal  union  and  oneness  with  Him  of  ourselves. 


VI 

THE  AUTHORITY  OF  JESUS 

The  characteristic  of  our  Lord's  ministry  which 
made  the  most  immediate  and  left  the  most  permanent 
impression  was  the  principle  or  quality  of  authority. 
It  is  not  only  that  it  was  perforce  conceded  to  Him  by 
others,  but  that  He  unqualifiedly  assumed  it  for  Him- 
self. The  two  aspects  in  which  this  authority  presents 
itself  to  us  might  be  distinguished  as  the  authority  of 
truth  and  the  authority  of  power. 

The  authority  of  our  Lord's  teaching  might  be  de- 
scribed as  that  of  originality  and  finality.  The  origi- 
nality was  the  more  apparent  and  striking  because  it 
was  in  such  complete  contrast  with  the  very  principle 
of  all  teaching  that  had  gone  before.  The  principle 
of  that  teaching  had  been  that  of  an  unquestioned 
and  unquestionable  external  authority,  the  authority 
originally  of  God  speaking  from  heaven,  and  then  of 
a  long  accumulating  and  consolidating  body  of  tradi- 
tional exposition  and  interpretation  scarcely  less  author- 
itative or  irreformable.  Instead  of  that  the  truth  itself 
was  present  and  spoke  for  itself  in  Jesus,  and  He  spoke 
immediately  and  directly  from  Himself  as  being  or 
embodying  the  truth.  The  question  arises  in  studying 
the  Sermon  on    the  Mount,   for  example,   In    what 

74 


The  Authority  of  Jesus  75 

capacity,  as  being  WTio  or  What,  does  Jesus  utter  that 
great  body  of  truth?  Is  He  speaking  there  as  God, 
and  with  the  outward  infallible  authority  of  a  proclama- 
tion from  heaven  ?  Or  on  the  other  extreme,  is  it  only 
the  highest  reach  and  utterance  of  wisdom  in  the  heart 
and  from  the  lips  of  an  earthly  sage  ?  On  the  face  of 
the  evidence  of  the  utterance  itself,  and  in  the  absence 
of  any  explanation  on  our  Lord's  own  part  of  the 
authority  by  which  He  spake,  I  would  give  the  follow- 
ing at  least  provisional  and  temporary  answer.  On 
the  one  side  this  teaching  cannot  and  will  not  interpret 
itself  as  the  tentative  and  incomplete  wisdom  of  human 
reason  and  conscience  so  far  as  they  have  attained. 
On  the  other  side,  whatever  its  ultimate  source,  it  does 
not  come  to  us  out  of  the  mouth  of  Jesus  with  the  im- 
mediate or  unmediated  force  of  an  utterance  from 
heaven.  Jesus  Christ  speaks  to  us  simply  in  the  ca- 
pacity and  with  the  authority  of  the  inherent  and 
essential  truth  of  the  things  He  says.  I  speak  that  I 
do  know,  and  testify  that  I  have  seen,  —  that  is  all  the 
authority  He  will  give  us.  No  matter  whence  or  how 
the  truth,  the  authority  of  the  truth  is  that  it  is  the 
truth.  Of  course  our  Lord  does  say  always,  My  truth 
is  not  mine  but  His  that  sent  me,  —  but  what  authority 
had  He  for  saying  that,  or  what  proof  could  He  give 
of  it  ?  At  the  last  the  only  authority  lay  in  the  fact  of 
its  being  the  truth,  and  all  the  proof  simply  in  the  power 
of  the  truth  to  prove  itself.  I  repeat,  then,  that  the 
immediate  capacity  in  which  Jesus  Christ  taught  was 
that  of  the  truth  which  He  taught.  That  was  the  truth, 
whether  divine  or  human  or  both,  but  the  whole  actual 


76         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

truth  of  humanity,  of  human  existence,  human  hfe, 
human  destiny.  He  was  Himself  that  truth  —  in- 
carnate, personal,  consummated.  And  He  was  not 
only  the  truth  consummated,  but  the  consummation 
or  consummating  of  the  truth;  not  only  the  truth  and 
life  of  humanity,  but  the  process  or  way  by  which 
humanity  comes  to  the  knowledge  of  its  truth  and 
attains  to  the  living  of  its  life. 

The  truth  for  which  Jesus  Christ  stands  is  distinctly 
and  definitely  the  truth  of  man,  of  human  life.  And 
when  He  says  of  it,  I  speak  that  I  do  know  and  testify 
that  I  have  seen.  He  means  that  what  He  says  of  it  is 
matter  of  His  own  personal  human  experience.  He 
has  Himself  been  through  the  whole  of  human  expe- 
rience, and  is  competent  to  testify  as  a  witness  to  all 
that  is  in  it.  He  knew  what  was  in  man,  because  He 
was  Himself  all  of  man.  The  fact  that  from  the  first 
opening  of  His  mouth  as  a  teacher  Jesus  speaks  with 
the  authority  of  perfect  truth  does  not  contradict  the 
fact  that  He  had  humanly  learned  the  truth.  Almost 
the  first  step,  for  example,  in  His  public  ministry  was 
to  set  Himself  outside  of  and  in  opposition  to  the  whole 
spirit  and  principle  and  method  of  the  religion  in  which 
He  was  born.  Shall  we  not  suppose  that  the  grounds 
of  that  opposition  had  been  accumulating  and  the 
form  of  it  taking  shape  in  His  heart  and  mind  long 
before  His  public  attitude  was  assumed  ?  At  twelve 
He  was  deeply  interested  and  concerned  with  what 
was  going  on  in  the  temple,  and  during  the  eighteen 
intervening  years  He  was  doubtless  more  than  an 
annual  visitor  to  what  in  His  conception  was,  or  ought 


The  Authority  of  Jesus  77 

to  be,  the  holy  city.  If  He  held  His  peace  outwardly 
during  that  time,  what  was  going  on  within  ?  And  so 
not  only  with  part  but  with  the  whole  of  the  wisdom  with 
which  He  spoke  and  acted,  we  shall  doubtless  have  to 
go  further  in  seeking  a  reason  for  its  being  so  far  be- 
yond the  attainment  of  all  other  human  experience, 
but  we  need  not  on  that  account  deny  it  to  be  the  fruit 
and  result  of  a  true  human  experience. 

The  difficulties  multiply  upon  us  when  we  pass  from 
the  authority  of  truth  to  that  of  power  on  the  part  of 
our  Lord.  What  is  this  ?  A  new  teaching !  —  they 
exclaimed  on  His  first  public  appearance,  according 
to  St.  Mark.  But  it  is  something  more  than  a  new 
teaching,  —  for,  With  authority  He  commandeth  even 
the  unclean  spirits,  and  they  obey  Him.  Unquestion- 
ably, Jesus  was  accepted  as  having  power  not  only 
over  the  spiritual  and  physical  ills  of  human  nature, 
but  over  disorders  even  of  external  nature.  With 
regard  to  many  of  the  difficulties  involved  here,  we  may, 
so  far  as  our  purpose  is  concerned,  quickly  dispose  of 
them.  The  fact  or  facts,  for  example,  of  demoniacal 
possessions;  the  commentators  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
now  of  the  possessed  that  one  was  an  epileptic  and 
another  a  madman.  To  Jesus  they  were  possessed 
of  demons.  What  of  that  ?  If  Jesus  Christ,  in  all  the 
human  and  divine  truth  of  Him,  whatever  that  be,  were 
come  to-day  instead  of  two  thousand  years  ago,  would 
He  not  speak  and  think  in  terms  of  human  thought 
and  knowledge  and  speech  of  to-day?  If  not,  then 
what.'*  In  terms  of  the  thought  and  speech  of  men 
two  thousand  years  hence?     And  if  He  should  think 


78         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

the  thoughts  and  speak  in  terms  of  the  science  of  to-day, 
would  there  not  be  the  same  difficulties  two  thousand 
years  hence  that  we  have  with  the  thoughts  and  speech 
of  two  thousand  years  ago?  The  abiding  truth  of 
Jesus  Christ  is  within  and  behind  and  wholly  inde- 
pendent of  the  ever  changing  phases  or  stages  of  human 
knowledge.  The  setting  has  from  time  to  time  to  be 
altered  to  adapt  it  to  the  changing  focus  or  vision  of 
advancing  science,  but  what  is  really  of  the  jewel  within 
does  not  change  with  it;  it  is  Jesus  Christ  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever. 

We  have  to  meet  fairly  and  frankly  the  fact  that  the 
very  conception  of  miracle  is  a  real  and  a  growing 
stumbling-block  to  the  thought,  and  I  may  say  the  con- 
science, of  to-day.  We  have  to  take  account  of  this 
prejudice,  and  do  it  the  justice  to  understand  it.  We 
may  say  that  it  is  due,  first,  to  the  world's  growing 
observation  and  experience  of  the  inviolability  and 
uniformity  of  natural  law.  With  that  growth  miracle 
has  gradually  disappeared,  not,  assuredly,  because 
facts  have  changed,  but  because  our  understanding 
and  interpretation  of  facts  have  changed.  We  assume 
that  if  we  understood  all  facts,  all  facts  would  appear 
to  us  natural.  But,  secondly,  with  that  change  another 
has  followed,  or  is  following,  more  slowly.  We  have 
learned  or  are  learning  to  see  God  less  and  less  in 
transcendences  of  nature,  and  more  and  more  in  the 
perfect  unity  and  order  and  wisdom  of  nature.  We 
feel  that  the  whole  work  of  God  is  one  and  of  a  piece, 
that  addition  or  interference  or  reparation  from  without 
would  be  a  confession  of  imperfection  or  failure.     The 


The  Authority  of  Jesus  79 

natural  has  become  to  us  more  divine  than  the  non- 
natural  or  the  contra-natural.  But  more  than  that, 
in  the  third  place,  —  we  ought  long  ago  to  have  been 
sensible  of  the  positive  injury  that  has  come  to  the 
world  through  the  misapprehension  that  the  true  super- 
natural is  a  condemnation  or  in  any  respect  whatever 
a  supplanting  or  displacing  of  the  natural.  The  true 
supernatural  is  only  the  truer  and  higher  natural.  It 
is  God  not  without  but  within  the  natural,  helping  us 
not  to  discard  but  to  realize  or  fulfil  the  natural,  on  the 
lines  of  its  own  truer  because  higher  and  completer 
nature.  The  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  because  it  is  higher 
than  nature  can  carry  us,  or  than  we  can  carry  our- 
selves in  our  own  fulfilment  of  the  law  of  nature,  is  not 
therefore  contrary  to  nature.  It  is  our  own  highest 
nature  —  and  that  alone  is  the  true  supernatural  — 
not  to  be  completed  by  nature,  nor  to  be  able  of  our- 
selves to  fulfil  the  law  of  self-completion,  but  to  find 
the  completion  at  once  of  our  nature  and  ourselves  in 
highest  union  and  association  with  God.  The  world 
still  wants  miracle  in  its  Christianity,  to  the  untold 
damage  of  itself  and  the  utter  contradiction  of  Chris- 
tianity. Was  it  better  that  the  earth  should  be  grad- 
ually delivered  from  the  curse  of  plague  and  pestilence 
by  science  and  sanitation,  by  the  natural  process  of 
self-cleansing  and  sweetening,  or  that  in  the  stead  of 
that  the  old  so-called  Christian  method  of  miracle  in 
response  to  prayer  and  fasting  should  have  sufficed, 
and  saved  the  trouble  and  expense  of  the  cleansing  and 
the  sweetening  ?  And  so,  in  the  mass  or  with  the  in- 
dividual, there  are  natural  causes  of  natural  ills  which 


80         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

are  best  dealt  with  only  by  natural  science,  which  is 
the  knowledge  of  natural  causes,  and  by  natural  art, 
which  is  the  acquired  skill  to  apply  that  knowledge. 
Anything  that  could  and  did  supplant  the  necessity  for 
science  and  art  would  be  destructive  of  a  very  large 
part  of  human  life,  and  would  be  a  direct  contradiction 
of  Him  who  came  that  we  might  have  life  and  have 
it  more  abundantly. 

The  injury  that  comes  to  us  from  the  unwhole- 
some demand  for  miracle  is  more  apparent  as  well  as 
more  real  in  our  inner  than  in  our  outer  life.  Chris- 
tianity ought  to  be  not  only  the  most  spiritual  but  the 
most  natural  life  in  the  world.  The  life  of  faith  in 
God  ought  to  be  the  life  of  the  highest  activity  of  our- 
selves, and  of  the  completest  fulfilment  not  only  of 
every  potentiality,  but  every  relation  and  obligation 
of  our  nature  and  our  natural  condition.  But  there 
is  a  not  undeserved  charge  against  Christians  of  weak- 
ness, as  compared  with  the  more  positive  and  active 
life  of  the  world.  And  then  comes  the  charge  against 
Christianity  itself,  that  it  weakens  the  character  through 
relieving  the  man  of  the  responsibility  and  the  task  of 
self-realization,  of  working  out  his  own  salvation.  His 
life-work  has  been  done  for  him  or  instead  of  him,  and 
"he  is  contented  to  be  a  sinner  saved  by  grace."  Is  it 
not  true  that  we  are  constantly  expecting  miracle  to 
be  wrought  in  our  behalf,  that  we  are  looking  to  God 
to  have  done  for  us  or  to  do  in  us  that  the  whole  benefit 
of  which  consists  in  our  doing  ourselves  ?  No,  Christ 
is  our  salvation  only  because  He  is  the  power  of  God 
in  us  to  work  out  our  own  salvation.      If  instead  of 


The  Authority  of  Jesus  81 

being  that,  He  were  instead  of  that  to  us,  He  would  be 
not  our  salvation  but  its  opposite.  Now  miracle  is 
something  instead  of  nature  and  instead  of  ourselves, 
whereas  the  Christianity  of  Jesus  Christ  is  what  we 
see  in  Himself,  God  indeed  and  the  power  of  God,  but 
God  so  in  nature  and  so  in  man  that  it  only  completes 
the  nature  and  perfects  the  man.  There  is  no  Holy 
Ghost  in  me  save  as  the  spirit  that  I  myself  am  of,  and 
there  is  no  Christ  in  me  save  in  what  I  am  myself.  And 
if  God  be  truly  in  me  by  His  Word  and  His  Spirit,  He 
is  so  not  to  supplant  or  to  displace  my  nature  or  my 
personality,  but  only  to  complete  them  on  their  own 
lines  and  perfect  them  in  their  own  acti\'ities.  We  can 
see,  then,  how  there  may  be  some  ground  of  prejudice 
against  the  conception  of  miracles,  at  least  as  we  have 
misunderstood  and  abused  it. 

Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Jesus  possessed  the 
extraordinary  powers  ascribed  to  Him  and  performed 
the  works  we  call  miracles.  There  is  less  and  less 
disposition  to  deny  that,  the  more  apparent  it  becomes 
that  there  are  psychic  and  spiritual  forces  as  yet  latent 
in  human  nature  of  which  we  know  not  whereunto  the 
future  development  may  reach.  Such  powers  were 
existent  and  manifested  themselves  in  our  Lord's  time, 
and,  like  all  other  human  powers,  for  evil  as  well  as  for 
good.  The  devil  as  well  as  God  could  make  use  of 
them.  It  is  not  inconceivable  nor  perhaps  improbable 
that  there  may  be  a  spiritual  and  divine  use  for  those 
powers,  of  which  our  Lord  gave  us  the  highest  indica- 
tion, of  which  we  have  not  as  yet  made  true  experiment, 
and  therefore  have  not  true  experience.     Assuredly, 


82         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

there  is  more  to  be  accomplished  than  our  religion  or 
our  science  have  accomplished  for  the  spiritual  and 
the  natural  ills  of  mankind  through  the  mind  and 
through  the  faith  of  men.  On  the  part  of  religion, 
may  it  not  be  from  a  lack  of  mental  and  spiritual  sus- 
ceptibility on  our  part,  the  absence  of  a  due  response 
of  mind  and  heart,  that  the  truth  and  the  love  of  God 
do  not  work  greater  wonders  in  our  lives,  not  only 
spiritual  and  moral  but  physical  also  ?  May  it  not  be 
one  more  of  the  many  reproaches  of  our  Christianity 
as  it  is,  that  many  have  to  go  outside,  if  not  of  it,  yet  of 
its  organized  fellowship,  to  find  that  power  of  God  unto 
salvation  of  soul  and  body  which  was  its  promise  to 
us  ?  Whatsoever  lies  dormant  in  us  of  natural  poten- 
tiality to  be  found  and  healed  in  soul  or  body  by  truth 
and  love  acting  directly  upon  mind  and  heart,  let  it  by 
all  means  be  awakened  and  developed.  It  will  not 
militate  against,  but  rather  will  work  with,  the  true 
principle  that  God's  grace  and  power  must  work  in 
and  with  and  through  ourselves  and  our  own  activities, 
and  not  simply  for  or  instead  of  us. 

Let  us  see  how  our  Lord  Himself  regarded  His  won- 
derful powers.  Unquestionably,  in  a  very  large  sense. 
He  considered  Himself  to  be  in  the  world  as  a  divine 
physician  of  the  ills  and  the  sicknesses  that  are  in  it. 
In  how  large  a  sense,  I  think  we  can  only  begin  to  realize 
in  our  later  interpretations  of  His  work  and  person. 
I  believe,  as  I  have  said,  that  our  Lord's  permanent 
function  was  to  treat  causes,  or  the  cause,  and  not 
symptoms ;  and  symptoms  only  indirectly,  as  they  could 
be  temporarily  alleviated,   and   would   be  ultimately 


The  Authority  of  Jesus  83 

removed  by  the  removal  of  the  cause.  In  other  words. 
He  came  to  take  away  sin,  and  by  consequence  all  the 
consequences  of  sm.  But  at  the  first  He  needed  to 
produce  an  adequate  impression  upon  the  hearts  and 
minds  of  men  of  not  only  His  disposition  and  mission 
but  also  of  His  authority  and  power  to  be  the  divine 
helper  and  healer.  Of  this  there  was  no  doubt  or  ques- 
tion in  His  own  mind,  and  it  imparted  to  Him  that 
aspect  of  authority  which  took  away  all  doubt  or  ques- 
tion from  the  minds  of  those  who  were  the  subjects  of 
His  power.  They  were  the  subjects,  and  not  merely 
the  objects,  of  His  power.  He  carried  them  along  with 
Himself  in  their  healing.  On  their  part  it  was  mind 
or  heart  or  faith  healing.  He  told  them  to  be  well,  to 
arise  and  walk,  to  look  up  and  see.  And  they  did  it. 
Could  not  we  in  many  ways  do  it  too,  if  only  we  would 
believe  and  know  ?  What  we  have,  first  and  perhaps 
chiefly,  to  note  in  connection  with  our  Lord's  miracles 
is  the  way  in  which  He  Himself  deprecated  the  element 
in  them  of  mere  sign  or  wonder.  With  Him  they  were 
simply  parts  of  His  mission  and  power  to  help  and  heal. 
St.  Matthew  describes  them  as  fulfilling  the  prophecy. 
Himself  took  our  infirmities,  and  bare  our  diseases.  And 
ever  as  He  wrought  them  there  are  evidences  that  all  this 
dealing  with  outward  conditions  is  but  preliminary  to  a 
further  and  a  higher  aim.  The  miracles  are  but  parables ; 
the  power  to  heal  sickness  is  but  proof  of  the  power  to 
heal  sin.  But  that  ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  man 
hath  power  to  forgive  sins  (then  saith  He  to  the  sick 
of  the  palsy),  Arise,  take  up  thy  bed,  and  go  unto  thy 
house.     And  he  arose  and  departed  to  his  house. 


84         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

There  are  other  miracles  that  it  would  be  more  diffi- 
cult to  give  a  reason  for  or  attempt  an  explanation  of; 
such,  for  example,  as  His  mysterious  sympathy  with 
and  power  over  the  operations  of  nature.  However 
that  is  to  be  accounted  for,  or  disposed  of,  our  ignorance 
need  not  seriously  concern  us.  At  any  rate  it  sym- 
bolizes to  us  this  great  truth:  The  more  we  are  at  one 
and  are  one  with  God,  the  more  are  we  so  with  every- 
thing else  within  and  without  us,  and  the  more  —  as 
we  shall  perhaps  know  in  the  future  —  have  we  the 
sympathy  and  co-operation  not  only  of  our  whole 
selves  but  of  all  nature  around  us. 

We  were  brought  just  above  face  to  face  with  our 
Lord's  authority  and  power  to  deal  with  sin.  The 
further  question  of  that  must  be  reserved  for  our  second 
part,  upon  the  interpretation  of  His  work.  Another 
larger  claim,  to  be  similarly  reserved,  is  expressed  at 
the  close  of  St,  Matthew's  Gospel:  All  authority  hath 
been  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  Go  ye 
therefore,  and  make  disciples  of  all  nations,  baptizing 
them  into  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and 
of  the  Holy  Ghost;  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things 
whatsoever  I  commanded  you;  and  lo,  I  am  with  you 
alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world.  But  even  these 
are  not  yet  all  the  ascriptions  to  Jesus,  or  the  claims  by 
Him  of  that  exousia,  that  divine  prerogative,  which  we 
have  so  far  only  partially  traced  through  the  Gospels. 
In  our  Lord's  last  address  to  His  Father,  before  leaving 
the  world,  according  to  St.  John,  He  speaks  thus: 
Father,  the  hour  is  come;  glorify  thy  Son,  that  the  Son 
may  glorify  thee:  even  as  thou  gavest  Him  authority 


The  Authority  of  Jesus  85 

over  all  flesh,  that  whatsoever  thou  hast  given  Him,  to 
them  He  should  give  eternal  life.  And  this  is  life 
eternal,  that  they  should  know  thee  the  only  true  God, 
and  him  whom  thou  didst  send,  even  Jesus  Christ. 
The  eternal  life  which  He  describes  as  His  authority 
and  power  to  impart  are  spoken  of  at  length  as  being 
possessed  here  on  earth;  but  He  goes  on  to  pray,  Father, 
that  which  thou  hast  given  me,  I  will  that,  where  I  am, 
they  also  may  be  with  me;  that  they  may  behold  my 
glory  which  thou  hast  given  me;  for  thou  lovedst  me 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world. 

^Vhen  we  come  to  interpret  these  later  claims  of 
divine  authority,  I  shall  endeavour  to  show  that,  while 
they  go  beyond  the  earlier  ones  we  have  been  consider- 
ing, and  project  themselves  into  all  the  future  of  human 
life,  not  only  here  but  hereafter,  yet  they  are  all,  the 
earliest  and  the  latest,  precisely  along  the  same  lines 
and  mean  the  same  thing. 


VII 

THE  BLESSEDNESS  OF  JESUS 

A  STUDY  of  the  beatitudes  will  give  us  the  highest 
illustration  possible  of  the  leading  principles  of  what 
we  have  been  discussing  as  the  gospel  of  the  common 
humanity  and  the  earthly  life  of  our  Lord.  Blessed- 
ness is  the  highest  expression  as  it  is  the  highest  reach 
and  attainment  of  that  life.  The  life  of  Jesus  would 
not  be  a  gospel  to  us  if  it  were  not  a  revelation  and  a 
promise  of  human  blessedness.  We  see  in  Him  the 
meaning,  the  value,  the  worth,  which  not  only  justifies 
to  us  and  reconciles  us  to  our  life  and  its  conditions  as 
they  are,  but  enables  us  to  find  in  it  the  highest  satis- 
faction of  which  our  natures  are  capable  and  the  highest 
enjoyment  to  which  our  spirits  or  personalities  can 
attain.  We  have  already  seen  that  while  personal 
pleasure  or  happiness  or  even  blessedness  can  never 
be  the  motive,  it  is  in  fact  the  measure  and  the  condi- 
tion, of  the  highest  activity.  Mere  instinct  or  mere 
duty  can  never  lift  us  to  our  height.  In  the  first  place, 
perfect  functioning  or  activity  is  perfect  pleasure  or 
happiness  or  blessedness,  as  the  function  is  particular, 
general,  or  universal,  and  is  lower  or  higher  in  the  scale. 
And,  secondly,  as  the  perfection  of  the  activity  heightens 
the  pleasure,  so  reflexively  the  perfection  of  the  pleasure 

86 


The  Blessedness  of  Jesus  87 

is  necessary  to  the  complete  heightening  of  the  function 
or  activity.  We  can  be  or  do  perfectly  only  that  which 
we  supremely  love,  and  which  therefore  it  is  our 
supreme  pleasure,  happiness  or  blessedness,  as  the  case 
may  be,  to  be  or  to  do.  Blessedness,  therefore,  let  us 
repeat,  is  at  once  the  measure  and  the  condition  of  the 
perfect  life.  Aristotle  states  the  principle  somewhat 
as  follows :  Pleasure,  he  says,  speaking  of  even  the  lower 
true  pleasures,  completes  a  function  in  two  senses. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  its  completion;  like  the  bloom 
on  the  peach  or  the  cheek,  it  is  the  final  touch  which 
marks  the  acme  of  the  act  or  activity.  In  the  second 
place,  it  causes  its  completion,  by  infusing  into  the  act 
or  activity  that  without  which  it  cannot  complete  itself. 
When,  therefore,  our  Lord  comes  to  speak  of  blessed- 
ness. He  is  describing  His  own  life,  and  the  life  that 
should  be  ours,  in  its  very  fulness  and  completeness. 

The  first  question  is  as  to  the  fact,  actual  or  possible, 
in  human  life  as  it  is,  of  such  a  blessedness.  Our 
Lord's  testimony  is  to  the  fact  of  its  actuality,  and 
therefore  of  its  possibility.  And  let  us  pause  to  ob- 
serve that  it  is  testimony  on  His  part.  It  is  not  the 
immediate  revelation  of  omniscience,  but  the  witness 
of  human  experience.  He  knew  that  there  is  a  blessed- 
ness in  human  life,  because  He  had  found  it  and  was 
in  possession  of  it.  He  spoke  in  the  name  and  with 
the  authority  of  it,  and  He  declared  it  that  others  might 
seek  and  find  and  have  part  with  Him  in  it.  The 
beatitudes  are  the  revelation  of  His  own  humanly  dis- 
covered and  humanly  experienced  secret  of  blessedness. 
There  is  not  one  of  the  human  conditions  or  causes  of 


88         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

it  which  He  gives  that  He  had  not  Himself  tested  and 
proved  to  the  utmost.  There  is  not  one  of  the  ingre- 
dients in  the  cup  of  it  that  He  had  not  drunk  to  the 
bottom.  It  is  true  here  as  always,  that  He  spake  that 
He  Himself  knew  and  testified  to  that  He  Himself  had 
experienced.  He  had  known  the  poverty  which  is  the 
condition  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  the  sorrow  without 
which  one  cannot  experience  the  divine  consolations, 
the  meekness  through  which  He  was  destined  to  in- 
herit the  earth;  He  had  hungered  and  thirsted  for 
righteousness  and  been  filled ;  He  had  known  the  mercy 
to  others  which  is  the  only  mercy  to  ourselves;  through 
the  purity  of  His  human  heart  He  had  seen  God;  in 
His  perfect  ministry  of  peace  with  God  and  peace  among 
men  He  had  reached  the  acme  of  human  attainment, 
and  tested  what  it  is  not  only  to  be  called  but  to  be  the 
Son  of  God.  He  had  known,  too,  and  experienced 
the  blessedness  of,  persecution  and  reproach  and  false 
witness  and  rejection. 

As  all  the  causes  and  conditions  so  all  the  rewards 
and  enjoyments  of  this  blessedness  are  described  by 
our  Lord  as  to  be  found  within  this  present  life.  Blessed 
are  —  not  shall  be  hereafter  —  those  of  whom  He  is 
speaking.  For  theirs  is  —  not  shall  be  —  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  its  rewards.  Even  where  He  speaks  in  the 
future,  as  He  continues  to  do,  it  is  evident  that  He  is 
speaking  of  cause  and  effect  here  and  not  hereafter. 
Blessed  are  they  that  mourn:  for  they  shall  be  com- 
forted. No  chastening  or  aflfliction  is  at  the  moment 
joyous;  it  is  only  afterward  that  it  yieldeth  peaceable 
fruit.     But  afterward,  in  time;  if  we  cannot  reap  it  in 


The  Blessedness  of  Jesus  89 

time,  there  is  no  assurance  that  we  can  do  so  in  eternity. 
St.  Paul  thanks  God  that  the  afflictions  of  Christ  had 
abounded  upon  him,  not  only  because  thereby  he  had 
come  to  know  for  himself  the  comfort  that  aboundeth 
through  Christ,  but  because  he  was  thus  enabled  to 
comfort  others  with  the  comfort  wherewith  he  was 
himself  comforted  of  God. 

Nothing  assuredly  better  than  a  blessedness  that 
begins  in  poverty  and  sorrow,  and  has  its  earthly  end 
in  persecution,  could  illustrate  the  great  truth  that  the 
issues  of  the  kingdom  of  God  are  within  ourselves,  that 
it  is  the  energies  and  activities  of  our  own  souls  in  which 
the  abundance  of  our  life  consists,  and  which  therefore 
control,  or  determine  and  constitute,  our  happiness. 
It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  it  is  not  environ- 
ment but  our  own  reaction  upon  environment  that 
blesses  or  curses  us.  The  same  environment  is  equally 
calculated  to  make  and  to  mar  opposite  responses  to  it. 
Identical  conditions  produce  the  hero  and  the  coward. 
The  career  of  Jesus  Christ  so  far  as  it  is  a  revelation  to 
us  from  God,  or  so  far  as  it  is  a  demonstration  to  us  of 
a  fact  in  itself,  reveals  and  demonstrates  to  us  this 
truth:  that  human  conditions  rightly  interpreted  and 
rightly  acted  upon  are  the  best  conditions  for  the  pro- 
duction of  a  divine  human  life  and  blessedness. 

If  we  wish  to  go  more  into  the  details  of  the  blessed- 
ness of  Jesus,  we  must  analyze  the  separate  beatitudes, 
and  this  we  shall  proceed  to  do  with  at  least  one  or 
more  of  them.  In  the  two  most  definite  statements 
by  our  Lord  of  the  nature  and  purpose  of  His  earthly 
mission,  the  opening  address  at  Nazareth  and  the  reply 


90         TJie  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

to  John  in  prison.  He  repeats  an  expression  which  is 
the  keynote  of  His  ministiy :  He  anointed  me  to  preach 
the  gospel  to  the  poor;  and,  The  poor  have  the  gospel 
preached  unto  them.  As  the  Gospel  to  the  Poor  was 
the  divine  commission,  so  was  it  the  human  credential 
of  His  Messiahship.  Who  are  the  poor?  Are  they 
the  secularly  or  earthly  poor,  or  the  spiritually  and 
heavenly  poor  ?  It  is  a  mixed  question  in  the  Gospels, 
just  as  we  have  seen  that  it  is  an  open  question  whether 
our  Lord's  actual  ministry  was  one  of  general  humanity 
or  for  the  specific  taking  away  of  sin.  If  we  read  the 
whole  of  the  two  passages  quoted  from  above,  we  shall 
see  that  all  the  Messianic  functions  —  release  to  the 
captives,  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind,  liberty  to  the 
bruised;  or.  The  blind  see,  the  lame  walk,  the  lepers 
are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the  dead  are  raised  up  — 
are  such  as,  while  they  have  their  material  prototypes, 
may  be  interpreted  as  spiritual  only,  the  material  be- 
coming mere  figure  or  symbol  of  the  spiritual.  We 
have  seen  how  Jesus  Himself  strives  always  to  bend 
the  lower  to  the  higher,  and  the  fact  that  while  in  St. 
Luke  He  speaks  of  the  blessedness  of  the  poor  in  gen- 
eral, in  St.  Matthew  He  limits  the  expression  to  Blessed 
are  the  poor  in  spirit,  or  the  spiritually  poor,  may  be 
only  another  instance  of  His  desire  gradually  to  spirit- 
ualize His  mission. 

We  limit  our  question,  then,  to  "VMio  are  the  poor  in 
spirit  ?  Several  lines  of  answer  tempt  us  in  different, 
and  perhaps  all  of  them  true,  directions;  the  deepest 
truths  are  the  most  many-sided.  But  let  us  begin  at 
least  by  looking  for  our  Lord's  own  interpretation. 


The  Blessedness  of  Jesus  91 

The  saying  must  be  taken  in  connection  with  many 
others,  such  as  these :  They  that  are  whole  need  not  the 
physician,  but  they  that  are  sick;  I  am  not  come  to  call 
— to  extend  the  gracious  divine  invitation  to  enter  the 
kingdom  to  —  the  righteous,  but  sinners ;  I  am  come 
that  they  that  see  not  may  see.  They  that  are  whole, 
they  that  say  they  see,  they  that  are  already  righteous, 
or  think  they  are,  are  not  objects  because  they  are  in- 
capable of  being  subjects  of  His  mission.  The  blessing 
of  the  kingdom  is  not  for  them,  because  they  cannot 
know  the  blessedness  of  it.  Perhaps  the  strongest 
expression  of  the  state  of  mind  that  shuts  out  from  the 
blessedness  of  Jesus  is  to  be  found  in  the  words.  Be- 
cause thou  sayest,  I  am  rich,  and  have  gotten  riches, 
and  have  need  of  nothing;  and  knowest  not  that  thou 
art  wretched  and  miserable  and  poor  and  blind  and 
naked :  I  counsel  thee  to  buy  of  me  gold  refined  by  fire, 
that  thou  mayest  become  rich;  and  white  garments, 
that  thou  mightest  clothe  thyself,  and  that  the  shame 
of  thy  nakedness  be  not  made  manifest;  and  eye-salve 
to  anoint  thine  eyes,  that  thou  mayest  see. 

No  doubt  the  above  covers  briefly  the  general  ground 
of  the  practical  application  of  the  first  beatitude,  so 
far  at  least  as  the  first  condition  of  blessedness  is  con- 
cerned. It  does  not  touch  the  second  point  involved, 
the  content  of  the  blessing  attached.  But  so  far  as  we 
have  gone,  may  we  not  attempt  to  go  a  little  deeper  and 
touch  the  philosophy  that  underlies  all  the  divine 
teaching?  Jesus  Christ  seems  to  attach  a  blessedness 
not  alone  to  our  consciousness  of  the  fact,  but  to  the 
fact  itself,  of  our  natural,  or  in  ourselves,  poverty  and 


92         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

blindness  and  sin  and  death.  In  the  first  place,  does 
He  not  at  least  exaggerate  our  natural  condition  ?  And 
if  He  does  not,  then  how,  in  the  second  place,  can  He 
consistently  call  it  blessed?  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
reason  of  both  positions  may  be  made  apparent.  The 
religion  of  Christianity  rests  on  two  facts,  the  one  of 
our  nature  and  the  other  of  ourselves.  The  first  is  the 
deficiency  of  our  nature,  and  the  second  is  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  ourselves.  With  regard  to  the  first,  Bishop 
Butler  teaches  us  in  substance  somewhat  as  follows: 
We  are,  as  constituted  by  our  nature,  deficient  beings. 
That  is,  in  order  to  be  complete,  we  need  ourselves  to 
supplement  or  add  something  to  our  nature.  The 
deficiency  is  to  be  supplied  by  the  addition  of  what  we 
call  habit.  Habit,  which  results  from  our  own  acts, 
and  forms  our  own  character,  and  determines  our  own 
destiny,  is  thus  something  which  we  ourselves  add  to 
our  nature,  and  which  as  we  thus  add  it  becomes  a 
second  nature  which  is  only  an  extension  or  further 
completion  of  the  first.  Now,  the  deficiency  of  our 
nature  at  the  first  is  a  positive  blessing,  because  it  is 
the  condition  of  our  acquisition  of  the  second  and 
higher  nature  which  is  that  of  personality.  Suppose 
we  could  not  become  more  than  merely  what  our  nature 
makes  us.  Suppose  the  mysteries,  but  none  the  less 
surely  the  facts,  of  our  own  consciousness  and  freedom, 
our  power  to  determine  ourselves  by  our  own  acts  and 
habits  and  character,  did  not  enter  into  the  matter  and 
make  persons  of  us.  The  deficiency  of  our  nature  is 
a  blessing  because  it  calls  for  and  makes  possible  the 
higher  development  of  our  personality. 


The  Blessedness  of  Jesus  93 

There  is  a  second  truth  no  less  important  to  the 
jBnal  and  entire  ascent  of  our  humanity  than  the  first. 
If  our  nature  was  deficient  in  itself,  it  is  equally  true 
that  we  are  insuflBcient  in  ourselves  for  the  yet  higher 
reaches  for  which  our  nature  prepares  us  and  for  which 
our  personal  lives  and  characters  are  intended  to  qualify 
and  fit  us.  Insufficiency  does  not  absolve  us  from  the 
obligation  of  ourselves  working  out  our  complete  and 
eternal  destinies.  It  only  implies  that  we  can  do  so 
only  in  conjunction  with  something  else.  Now  to  have 
been  complete  in  and  of  ourselves  would  have  been  to 
be  incapable  of  becoming  more  or  greater  than  we  are, 
or  are  capable  of  making  ourselves.  Christianity,  on 
the  contrary,  holds  out  to  us  the  promise  and  the  hope 
of  a  sympathy  and  a  union  with  all  things,  with  the 
mind  and  spirit  and  life  of  the  source  of  all  things, 
which  will  make  us  infinitely  more  and  greater  than 
ourselves.  It  thus  begets,  or  rather  addresses  and 
develops,  what  is  already  a  part  of  us  and  only  needs 
to  be  brought  into  consciousness  by  personal  experience, 
the  sense  of  insufficiency  and  the  need  of  what  will 
alone  suffice  for  the  attainment  of  the  fulness  of  our 
life.  That  is  it  of  which  our  Lord  speaks,  when  He 
says  that  He  is  come  that  we  might  have  life  and  might 
have  it  more  abundantly,  —  more  abundantly  than 
nature  can  supply  it  to  us,  or  than  we  can  multiply  it 
of  ourselves.  He  is  come  to  bring  God  into  our  lives, 
and  with  God  all  those  powers  and  promises  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  which  will  suffice  to  make  us  not 
only  all  that  we  are  but  also  somewhat  of  what  God  is. 
This  is  also  what  St.  Paul  experienced,  when,  entreating 


94         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

to  be  relieved  of  the  mortal  infirmity  he  discovers  in 
himself,  he  is  answered  from  above  himself,  My  grace 
is  sufficient  for  thee:  for  my  power  is  made  perfect  in 
weakness.  Whereupon  he  cries,  Most  gladly  therefore 
will  I  rather  glory  in  my  weaknesses,  that  the  strength 
of  Christ  may  rest  upon  me.  Wherefore  I  take  pleasure 
in  weaknesses,  in  injuries,  in  necessities,  in  persecu- 
tions, in  distresses,  for  Christ's  sake:  for  when  I  am 
weak,  then  am  I  strong. 

I  have  said  before  that  Jesus  Christ  nowhere  con- 
demns us  for  the  deficiencies  of  our  nature,  nor  for  the 
insufficiencies  of  ourselves.  He  does  not  find  fault 
with  us  that,  in  and  of  ourselves,  we  are  constant  vio- 
lators of  the  eternal  spirit  that  should  animate  us,  and 
transgressors  of  the  eternal  law  that  should  regulate 
and  control  us.  He  finds  fault  that  we  have  not  enough 
of  the  spirit  to  know  that  we  violate  it,  nor  apprehension 
enough  of  the  law  to  know  that  we  transgress  it;  that 
we  have  not  enough  of  holiness  to  want  it,  or  of  right- 
eousness to  hunger  and  thirst  after  it.  Blessed  are 
they  who  know  their  own  insufficiency,  their  own 
poverty  and  weakness,  sufficiently  to  feel  their  need  of 
the  powers  of  the  world  to  come,  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  in  their  souls.  And  not  only  so;  not  only  are  they 
blessed  who  know  their  poverty  and  feel  their  need, 
but  blessed  is  that  poverty  and  that  need  in  itself. 
That  we  are  insufficient  in  ourselves  for  the  holiness, 
the  righteousness,  the  eternal  life  that  are  necessary  to 
complete  us;  that  only  God  in  and  with  us  can  suffice 
for  them;  that  without  God  we  cannot  compass  the 
spirit  or  accomplish  the  law  of  our  own  perfection,  only 


The  Blessedness  of  Jesus  95 

means  that  God  has  made  us  not  for  ourselves  and  our 
own  finiteness,  but  for  Himself  and  His  infinity,  and 
that  we  are  violating  ourselves  and  transgressing  our 
law  in  falling  short,  or  in  being  willing  and  satisfied  to 
fall  short,  of  that. 

The  distinction  among  or  between  men  which  the 
New  Testament  recognizes  and  consistently  makes, 
which  our  Lord  Himself  always  makes,  is  not  that 
some  are  sinners  and  some  are  not,  but  that  some  are 
so  content  to  be  sinners  that  they  know  not  that  they 
are  sinners,  while  others  are  so  convinced  and  con- 
victed by  the  spirit  of  holiness  of  their  own  unholiness, 
and  by  the  law  of  righteousness  of  their  own  unright- 
eousness, that  they  are  conscious  only  of  sin  in  them- 
selves. St.  Paul  is  exactly  in  the  line  of  Christ  when 
he  says  that  it  was  never  the  end  or  expectation  of  the 
law  to  make  us  righteous.  The  only  righteousness  the 
law  could  produce  would  be  a  righteousness  of  our  own 
in  obedience  to  the  law.  But  it  would  be  a  very  low 
law  that  we  could  obey.  When  you  have  made  the 
law  as  high  as  God  Himself,  you  will  want  God  Him- 
self in  you  to  enable  you  to  fulfil  it.  By  the  law,  then, 
is  only  the  knowledge  of  sin.  When  the  law  has  made 
sinners  of  us,  has  convinced  and  convicted  us  of  sin, 
it  has  discharged  its  function.  When  it  has  prepared 
us  for  and  turned  us  over  to  God  who  alone  suflSces 
us,  or  fills  up  our  own  insufficiency,  for  holiness,  right- 
eousness, and  life,  then  it  is  functus  officio,  and  ready 
to  be  abolished,  as  John  the  Baptist  was  swallowed  up 
in  the  greater  light  of  Jesus  Christ.  Blessed  then  are 
we  even  that  we  are  sinners,  if  we  know  our  sin;  if 


96         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

through  knowledge  of  the  curse  of  sin  we  have  been 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  blessedness  of  holiness, 
and  if  through  experience  of  our  weakness  against  sin 
we  have  come  to  experience  the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation  from  sin. 

We  are  hardly  prepared  as  yet  to  enter  into  what  I 
conceive  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  other  half  of  the  first 
beatitude,  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  reward  attached 
to  a  true  poverty  of  spirit.  For  all  we  have  said  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  or  of  God,  I  think  we  need  the 
higher  interpretations  of  our  Lord's  work  and  person 
in  order  to  realize  all  that  is  ours  in  the  possession  of 
that  kingdom.  Some  one  has  said,  The  kingdom  of 
God  is  everywhere  if  we  could  but  see  it;  and  yet,  alas, 
almost  nowhere,  because  so  few  of  us  can  see  it.  The 
fault  indeed  is  all  in  our  seeing.  Jesus  Christ  has  not 
come  so  much  to  create  the  kingdom  of  God  without 
us,  as  to  create  within  us  the  power  to  see  it.  I  am 
come.  He  says,  that  they  which  see  not  may  see.  What 
He  saw  and  what  He  would  have  us  see  is:  all  the 
eternal  love  that  God  the  Father  is,  ours;  all  the  infinite 
grace  that  God  the  Son  is,  ours;  all  the  perfect  fellow- 
ship or  oneness  with  ourselves  that  God  the  Holy  Ghost 
is,  ours.  If  all  this  is  ours,  then  all  things  are  ours, 
and  all  blessedness  is  indeed  ours. 


/ 


VIII 
THE  BEATITUDES 

We  may  touch  more  lightly  upon  the  other  beatitudes, 
not  so  much  to  give  an  analysis  or  exposition  of  them- 
selves as  to  illustrate  more  clearly  some  of  the  features 
of  the  earthly  life  and  character  of  Jesus  Christ.  For 
from  our  present  point  of  view  that  character  and  life 
are  our  gospel  and  our  salvation. 

Blessed  are  they  that  mourn,  for  they  shall  be  com- 
forted. It  must  already  have  struck  us  that  the  grounds 
or  conditions  of  blessedness  adduced  by  our  Lord  are 
largely  those  which  would  seem  to  us  rather  those 
of  un-blessedness.  Poverty,  sorrow,  persecution,  re- 
proach, rejection,  —  how  can  these  be  grounds  of 
blessedness  ?  We  have  already  touched  upon  this 
point,  but  there  is  something  in  it  the  rationale  or 
philosophy  of  which  needs  to  be  brought  out  more 
plainly.  Aristotle  teaches  us  how,  especially  in  morals, 
opposites  result  from  the  same  causes  or  conditions. 
Not  only  out  of  identical  conditions  do  cowardice  and 
courage  arise,  as  the  conditions  are  difiFerently  met, 
but  the  conditions  of  difficulty,  danger,  pain,  and  fear, 
which  make  cowards  of  us,  are  precisely  the  only  ones 
which  could  beget  courage  or  heroism  in  us.  We 
cannot  be  brave  except  under  circumstances  calcu- 

97 


98         The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

lated  to  produce  fear  and  cowardice.  So  precisely  the 
occasions  and  opportunities  and  temptations  that 
yielded  to  and  overcome  by  are  the  causes  of  sin,  re- 
sisted and  overcome  are  the  causes  of  holiness.  They 
are  necessary  to  the  one  as  to  the  other.  Constituted 
as  we  are,  we  attribute  our  sin  to  what  we  call  the  flesh. 
We  must  just  as  truly  attribute  our  holiness  to  that 
same  flesh.  For  if  we  have  no  sin  that  does  not  come 
through  yielding  to  the  flesh,  neither  do  we  know  any 
holiness  which  is  not  acquired  by  and  which  does  not 
consist  in  the  conquest  of  the  flesh  and  its  subduing  to 
the  spirit.  This  is  easier  to  see  than  the  fact  that  even 
our  happiness  or  blessedness,  certainly  in  the  higher 
reaches  of  it,  cannot  be  found  in  freedom  from  sorrow 
but  only  in  the  enduring  and  overcoming  of  sorrow. 
First  for  the  fact,  and  then  for  the  explanation  of  it. 
As  to  the  fact,  assuredly  it  was  so  with  Jesus  Himself. 
In  the  world.  He  said,  ye  have  tribulation;  but  be  of 
good  cheer,  I  have  overcome  the  world.  His  own 
blessedness  had  been,  and  theirs  must  be,  one  not  of 
conditions  but  of  conquest  and  victory  over  conditions. 
The  conditions  calculated  in  themselves  to  produce 
sorrow  were  just  those  which  overcome  were  necessary 
to  produce  joy.  Thenceforth  to  St.  John  faith  was 
the  power  to  overcome  tlie  world,  —  not  only  its  sin 
but  its  sorrow. 

The  explanation  of  the  necessity  of  sorrow  to  blessed- 
ness seems  to  me  to  be  this:  The  highest  blessedness 
comes  to  us  in  the  sense  of  our  highest  selves.  It  is 
the  reflex  condition  of  our  highest  states  and  energies 
or  activities.     Now  these  can  be  expressed  only  by  the 


The  Beatitudes  99 

terms  holiness,  righteousness,  life.  Let  us  take  the 
first  of  these,  the  oue  most  distinctive  of  Christ  and 
Christianity.  Holiness,  we  say,  is  freedom  from  sin. 
For  us  at  least,  situated  and  constituted  as  we  are,  that 
is  no  true  or  sufficient  definition.  Our  holiness  is  no 
mere  freedom  from  sin;  it  is  a  definite  relation  to,  a 
definite  attitude  against,  sin.  It  is  a  hatred  of,  a  sorrow 
for,  a  resistence  to,  an  overcoming  of,  sin  —  and  all 
these  to  the  point  of  at  least  meaning  and  intendmg, 
if  not  yet  attaining,  the  putting  away  of  sin.  I  speak 
only  for  beings  like  ourselves  when  I  say  that  the  con- 
summate joy  of  holiness  would  be  incomprehensible 
and  impossible  save  through  a  corresponding  and  equal 
sorrow  for  sin.  Lower  joys  or  satisfactions  might  not 
be  so  dependent  upon  the  experience  of  their  opposites, 
but  for  us  there  can  be  no  love  of  good  which  is  not  a 
hatred  of  evil,  and  no  joy  of  what  we  should  and  would 
be  that  is  not  born  of  sorrow  for  what  we  are. 

Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth. 
There  is  an  interesting  historical  as  well  as  philo- 
sophical side  to  this  beatitude.  The  question  is  as  to 
the  disposition  of  men  towards  men,  which  is  the  ulti- 
mately true  and  essential  one,  and  which  must  there- 
fore prevail  in  the  end  and  possess  the  earth.  It  is  a 
curious  fact  that  in  all  the  great  answers  to  the  question 
of  human  relationship  and  conduct,  the  same  term  has 
been  selected  to  express  the  ideal,  and  that  equally  in 
all  the  inadequacy  of  the  term  has  been  felt  and 
expressed.  Men,  according  to  Aristotle,  in  the  spirit 
and  temper  of  their  dealings  with  one  another,  should 
be  controlled  by  a  disposition  which  he  calls  meekness 


100       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

or  mildness  or  gentleness.  The  term  is  the  best  we 
have,  he  says,  but  it  is  inadequate;  it  is  not  positive  or 
strong  enough.  Moses  stands  out  as  the  type  of  the 
Hebrew  righteousness;  he  might  be  said  to  have  been 
the  creator  of  it.  And  we  speak  of  the  meekness  of 
Moses  as  though  that  were  his  distinguishing  trait. 
But  surely  we  have  all  felt  the  inadequacy  of  the  term 
meekness  to  express  the  character  or  disposition  of 
Moses.  Our  Lord  seems  to  have  selected  the  same 
term  to  express  His  own  fundamental  disposition. 
Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  He  says,  and  learn  of  me. 
For  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart;  and  ye  shall  find 
rest  unto  your  souls.  And  yet  we  too  feel  that  the 
word  meek  is  scarcely  the  one  to  describe  Jesus.  We 
feel  even  that  too  much  application  of  that  term  to  Him 
has  weakened  the  popular  conception  not  only  of  Him- 
self but  of  Christianity.  It  has  contributed  perhaps  to 
the  too  negative  and  colorless  interpretation  of  His 
great  principle  of  non-resistance.  The  question  is, 
as  I  have  said,  what  is  the  true  and  perfect  temper  of 
man  toward  man,  especially  in  the  difficult  and  trying 
circumstances  of  human  life.  We  may  depend  upon  it 
that  every  really  great  answer  to  this  question  will  be 
found  to  contain  some,  and  perhaps  many,  elements 
of  the  truth.  The  Greek  meekness,  as  the  ideal  tem- 
per, will  rest  upon  the  conceptions  of  reasonableness 
and  moderation.  The  right  reason,  the  power  to  see 
things  as  they  are,  is  the  natural  basis  of  mutual  under- 
standing, and  so  of  harmony  and  peace.  ^Vhen  we 
add  to  this  self-control,  freedom  of  the  will  from  preju- 
dice and  passion,  we  seem  to  have  both  the  intellectual 


The  Beatitudes  101 

and  the  moral  conditions  of  the  ideal  temper.  The 
lack  is  that  even  in  the  forbearance  and  magnanimity 
of  the  Greek  there  is,  if  not  too  much  regard  for  the 
propriety  or  nobility  of  one's  own  attitude,  yet  too  little 
regard  in  comparison  for  what  St.  Paul  calls  "  the  things 
of  the  other." 

In  the  so-called  meekness  of  Moses  there  is  a  lofty 
unselfishness,  a  great  humility,  a  perfection  of  zeal  and 
devotion,  which  momentary  weaknesses  and  impa- 
tiences scarcely  detract  from.  The  Law  and  the 
Prophets  between  them  were  productive  of  great  types. 
But  the  perfection  of  human  spirit  and  temper  waited 
still  for  its  realization  and  manifestation.  When 
Jesus  speaks  of  the  meek.  He  speaks  of  Himself.  He 
speaks  of  that  attitude  towards  men  under  all  possible 
conditions  of  provocation  and  trial  which  He  had 
deliberately  made  His  own  and  which  never  deserted 
Him  under  any  temptation  to  the  contrary.  The 
general  attitude  or  disposition  of  Jesus  towards  in- 
dividual men  and  towards  the  world  of  men  was  one 
not  without  its  natural  and  mighty  temptations  to  the 
contrary.  WTien  He  was  symbolically  taken  up  into 
the  exceeding  high  mountain  and  shown  all  the  king- 
doms of  the  earth  and  the  glory  of  them,  we  know  not 
what  visions  and  temptations  of  greatness  and  power 
and  natural  possibilities  and  opportunities  passed 
through  His  mind.  But  they  found  no  lodgment  there. 
The  prince  of  this  world  had  nothing  in  Him.  There 
were  opposite  spirits,  opposite  dispositions  and  atti- 
tudes, that  contended  for  the  possession  of  Him,  but 
from  first  to  last  He  knew  but  one.      All  self-seek- 


102       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

ing,  even  the  highest,  the  most  spiritual,  all  pride  or 
ambition  or  self-glorification  of  any  kind,  was  of  the 
devil,  and  was  bidden  to  get  behind  Him.  The  Son 
of  man,  the  ideal,  the  true,  the  eternal  man  can  know 
or  own  but  one  spirit,  one  temper,  one  attitude  or  dis- 
position upon  earth,  and  that  is,  not  to  be  served  but 
to  serve,  to  be  not  lord  but  servant  of  all.  And  there 
was  no  provocation  of  private  or  individual  treatment 
against  Himself  that  Jesus  Christ  had  not  to  meet  and 
treat,  and  He  met  and  dealt  with  each  with  its  own 
application  of  the  universal  temper  that  characterized 
Him  in  all.  I  do  not  know  how  we  can  define  or  de- 
scribe in  abstract  terms  the  peculiar  meekness,  or  what 
is  attempted  to  be  expressed  by  the  meekness  of  Jesus. 
The  thing  is  ever  more  and  greater,  and  even  different, 
from  its  best  expression.  That  is  why  God  never  gives 
us  definitions  or  descriptions  of  things,  but  always 
manifestations  of  the  thing  itself.  As  to  the  meekness 
spoken  of  in  this  beatitude  we  can  only  say  that  it  is 
the  universal  attitude  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  so  the  essen- 
tial Christian  attitude,  in  all  the  personal  relations  of 
men,  and  under  all  circumstances  of  possible  provo- 
cation or  trial  or  temptation.  Of  course  its  essential 
quality  is  love,  the  love  that  never  faileth,  that  can 
adapt  itself  to  every  case  and  preserve  its  identity  under 
every  transformation,  that  can  be  all  things  and  yet 
always  the  same  thing. 

But  the  interesting  point  about  the  beatitude  is  this: 
the  perfect  assurance  of  Jesus  that  the  right,  the  true 
attitude  of  man  toward  man  will  be  the  ultimately 
successful   and   surviving   attitude.     The   meek   shall 


The  Beatitudes  103 

inherit  and  possess  the  earth.  The  spirit  and  temper 
and  disposition  of  Jesus,  because  it  is  the  fittest,  be- 
cause it  is  that  which  alone  gives  true  meaning  and 
value  to  life,  because  it  is  the  only  bond  of  perfect  rela- 
tionship and  intercourse  among  men,  will  survive  and 
prevail.  And  has  not  the  history  of  our  Lord's  own 
throne  and  sceptre  and  kingdom  on  earth,  in  spite  of 
our  unchristian  want  of  faith  and  courage  and  devo- 
tion in  sustaining  and  extending  them,  more  than  vin- 
dicated His  confidence  and  His  promise?  On  what 
other  foundations  could  He  have  built  a  surer  and 
more  abiding  dominion  over  men  and  possession  of 
the  earth  than  that  He  has  built  upon  Himself  and  His 
own  eternal  attitude  toward  us  and  among  us?  The 
one  law  of  that  kingdom  is  that  each  of  us  in  it  shall  be 
what  He  is,  and  that  in  every  possible  complication  of 
mutual  intercourse  or  relation  we  shall  be  each  to  each 
what  He  is  to  us  all.  What  would  be  the  consequence 
if  that  spirit  should  indeed  inherit  and  possess  the 
earth  ? 

If  one  wishes  to  carry  out  the  principles  of  the  king- 
dom of  Christ  by  the  letter  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
he  will  doubtless  encounter  great  diflSculties.  The 
letter  of  non-resistance,  for  example,  as  there  stated 
without  qualification,  might  be  impracticable  in  actual 
and  general  practice.  Non-resistance  to  the  evil-doer 
might  be  the  greatest  e\^  we  could  render  him.  But 
does  not  our  Lord  Himself  by  such  sayings  as  this, 
Cast  not  your  pearls  before  swine,  lest  they  trample 
them  under  foot,  suggest  to  us  that  the  most  unquali- 
fied statement  of  universal  principles  is  intended  to  be 


104       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

qualified  by  common  sense  and  by  particular  circum- 
stances? The  one  principle  underlying  all  Christian 
dealing  with  one  another  is  that  in  every  case  we  are 
to  consider  all  "the  things  of  the  other,"  and  not  merely 
to  assert  ourselves  against  Him.  Now  the  things  of 
the  other  must  include  not  alone  his  immediate  or  his 
material  good,  but  still  more  his  moral  good,  or  his 
spiritual  and  personal  good.  If  one  acts  with  the 
wisest  and  best  reference  to  all  that,  it  may  well  happen 
that  he  might  be  most  truly  carrying  out  the  spirit  in 
actually  violating  the  letter  of  the  divine  precepts. 
Our  Lord  shows  no  disposition  to  give  us  dispensation 
from  the  use  of  our  own  reason  and  judgment  and 
"perception  in  particulars."  If  our  Christianity  truly 
possesses  that  spirit  of  Christ,  without  which  we  are 
none  of  His,  it  can  be  trusted  to  deal  with  the  letter  of 
His  commands. 

In  the  fourth  beatitude  we  have  what  is  technically 
if  not  really  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  theology  of  both 
the  old  and  the  new  Scriptures:  Blessed  are  they  that 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  for  they  shall  be 
filled.  With  the  Greek  man  is  the  measure.  To 
stand  well  with  one's  self,  to  be  true  to  one's  own  norm 
or  standard  or  ideal,  is  the  end.  With  the  Hebrew 
God  is  the  measure.  To  be  right  with  God,  to  stand 
right  with  God  —  but  on  the  ultimate  only  ground  of 
being  right  with  Him  —  that  is  the  end.  The  right- 
ness  of  the  universe,  righteousness  as  the  universal  law, 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  righteousness  all  appearances 
or  all  facts  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  the  sole 
obligation  to  be  on  the  side  of  righteousness  all  condi- 


The  Beatitudes  105 

tions  or  all  consequences  to  the  contrary  notwithstand- 
ing —  that  was  Hebrew  theology  and  Hebrew  law. 
The  letter  of  the  Old  Testament  law,  whether  natural, 
moral,  civil,  or  ceremonial,  was  the  truest  and  best 
expression  of  the  law  of  God.  Our  Lord  did  the  op- 
posite of  setting  Himself  against  the  letter  of  the  law. 
There  was  not  one  jot  or  tittle  of  it  that  He  abolished 
or  supplanted  otherwise  than  by  most  exactly  and 
completely  fulfilling  it.  It  is  the  highest  of  rights  to 
be  able  to  say  I  love,  —  it  is  the  greatest  of  wrongs  to 
say  that  best  thing,  and  then  not  love.  It  is  the  blackest 
of  sins  to  use  a  rite  or  a  ceremony  which  says  so  much, 
which  means  so  much,  which  ought  to  he  so  much,  and 
yet  to  use  it  without  anything  in  mind  or  heart  or  life 
of  all  that  it  says  and  means  and  ought  to  be.  The 
Pharisee,  in  making  the  letter  all,  made  it  not  merely 
nothing  but  very  much  worse  than  nothing.  In  taking 
the  place  of,  it  practically  displaced  and  abolished 
what  it  was  intended  for.  That  which  was  made  for 
man,  for  humanity  and  mercy,  as  the  sabbath,  was 
made  an  excuse  for  inhumanity  and  the  denial  of 
mercy.  That  which  was  ordained  for  God  and  piety, 
as  the  temple,  was  made  a  place  and  a  cover  for  selfish 
merchandise  and  earthly  gain.  The  circumcision  of 
the  flesh  was  made  to  do  duty  for  the  mortification 
and  purgation  of  the  spirit.  Sacrifice  —  as  in  the 
saying,  I  will  have  mercy  and  not  sacrifice  —  had 
become  the  synonym  of  its  own  opposite  and  denial. 
In  nothing  else  than  in  their  opposite  theories  and 
practice  of  righteousness  does  the  essential  contra- 
diction of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  to  that  of  His  place  and 


106       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

day  manifest  itself  more  clearly,  a  contradiction  which 
explains  the  tragedy  of  His  life. 

But  to  forget  the  false  and  look  only  upon  the  true, 
and  upon  the  only  true!  To  be  right  with  God,  to 
know  His  will  and  to  do  it!  No  Hebrew  lawgiver  or 
prophet,  assuredly,  hungered  and  thirsted  more  after 
that  than  did  Jesus.  None  was  more  consumed  with 
zeal  for  His  Father's  house  or  His  Father's  business. 
It  was  His  meat  and  drink,  a  food  that  again  and  again 
lifted  Him  above  the  need  or  the  want  of  earthly  food 
—  so  that  almost  He  lived  not  upon  bread  at  all  but 
only  upon  the  word  of  God.  Lo,  I  come  to  do  thy 
will,  O  God !  —  by  the  which  will,  by  the  which  perfect 
doing  of  the  Father's  will,  we  are  all  sanctified.  But 
if  Jesus  had  no  less  zeal  for  righteousness  than  law- 
giver or  prophet.  He  had  also  more  knowledge  of  what 
God's  righteousness  is.  To  say  that  God  is  infinitely 
right,  that  His  law  is  infinite  righteousness,  is  only  a 
formal  statement  or  truth  about  Him.  It  says  that 
what  He  is  is  right,  but  it  does  not  say  what  He  is  — 
or  consequently,  what  is  right.  Jesus  knows  better 
what  right  or  righteousness  is  because  He  knows  better 
what  God  is.  God  is  Love,  love  of  all  things,  espe- 
cially love  of  all  that  can  know  and  share  His  love. 
God  loves  love  because  love  loves  love.  The  only 
true  zeal  for  God,  the  only  right  or  righteousness,  is 
love.  That  is  the  only  real  definition  because  it  is 
the  only  one  which  gives  the  res,  the  thing  or  matter 
or  content,  the  substance,  of  God  or  man  or  holiness 
or  righteousness  or  life.  Love  is  not  only  the  spirit  or 
law,  it  is  the  eternal  actuality  or  reality  whose  are  the 


The  Beatitudes  107 

spirit  and  the  law,  of  the  universe.  And  it  is  that,  all 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  All  that  opposes 
that  is  only  the  opposite  out  of  which  that  is  born,  out 
of  which  that  is  surely  coming  day  by  day,  and  seon 
by  seon;  is  surely  coming  and  will  assuredly  come  at 
the  last  to  the  uttermost.  Yet  in  that  age,  and  in  every 
age,  men  could  and  can  be  consumed  by  a  zeal  for  God 
which  conceives  it  its  duty  and  makes  it  its  business  to 
put  love  out  of  its  heart  and  to  trample  love  under  its 
feet!  Righteousness  can  set  itself  against  mercy,  and 
zeal  against  charity! 

Our  Lord  does  not  say,  Blessed  are  the  righteous, 
but.  Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness.  He  allies  Himself  with  us  with  whom 
righteousness  is  no  fact  of  our  nature  nor  any  achieve- 
ment of  ourselves.  It  is  something  we  have  not  and 
want,  something  we  cannot  attain  and  look  for  from 
outside  ourselves.  We  do  not  hunger  and  thirst  for 
that  which  is  in  or  of  ourselves,  but  only  for  that  which 
comes  to  us  from  without  and  yet  upon  which  our  very 
lives  depend.  It  might  perhaps  have  been  otherwise 
in  almost  anything  else,  but  in  spiritual  things  it  must 
needs  be  so.  Righteousness  is  the  most  personal  thing 
in  the  world.  It  is  the  act  and  activity  of  ourselves. 
It  is  nothing  if  not  of  our  own  desire  and  choice  and 
will  and  entire  personal  effort  and  activity.  But  we 
cannot  supremely  want  or  desire  that  which  is  already 
ours,  oi  which  we  can  easily  ourselves  get.  The  rela- 
tion to  righteousness  and  the  attitude  towards  it  ex- 
pressed in  this  beatitude  is  the  ground  upon  which 
St.  Paul's  later  developed  doctrine  rests  exactly  and 


108       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

securely.  We  are  just  or  righteous  before  God,  not 
for  any  actual  or  possible  righteousness  of  our  own, 
but  because  we  see  in  Jesus  Christ  a  divine  righteous- 
ness, a  righteousness  of  God,  made  ours  by  grace  on 
God's  part,  and  by  faith  on  ours.  Because  that  right- 
eousness is  the  supreme  object  of  our  desire;  because 
we  look  upon  it  as  the  supreme  end  and  intention  of 
our  lives ;  because  we  accept  it  as  God's  word  of  promise, 
of  power,  and  consequently  of  fuljfilment,  as  regards 
ourselves;  and  so  appropriate  it  to  ourselves  by  faith 
and  enter  upon  the  possession  of  it  in  hope,  —  so  God 
accounts  it  ours  already,  as  He  will  make  it  ours  in  the 
end. 


IX 

THE  BEATITUDES  —  Continued 

Blessed  are  the  merciful,  for  they  shall  obtain 
mercy.  Our  Lord  used  no  more  characteristic  ex- 
pression, none  that  more  exactly  defined  His  own 
spiritual  temper  or  that  more  completely  differentiated 
it  from  that  of  His  opponents,  than  the  saying,  Go  ye, 
and  learn  what  this  means,  I  desire  mercy  and  not 
sacrifice.  The  end  of  the  law,  the  soul  of  right- 
eousness, the  essence  of  sacrifice,  is  love,  is  mercy. 
And  yet,  as  we  have  begun  to  see,  each  of  these 
greatest  things  in  the  world,  the  law,  righteous- 
ness, sacrifice,  had  come  to  stand  for  the  opposite 
of  love  or  mercy.  The  law  meant  the  letter,  not 
as  the  expression  of  but  as  substitute  for  the  spirit. 
Righteousness  was  the  scrupulous  observance  of  forms 
that  had  killed  the  life  they  were  instituted  to  keep 
alive.  And  the  sacrifices  were  come,  in  our  Saviour's 
own  mouth,  to  express  the  denial  and  contradiction  of 
that  very  sacrifice  which  His  life  and  death  so  perfectly 
exemplified.  The  word  and  the  thing,  however  mis- 
used, can  never  cease  to  be  the  essential  content  and 
the  essential  expression  of  Christianity.  All  love  or 
mercy  is  only  so  in  actual  service,  and  all  service  is  such 
only  in  sacrifice.     The  only  true  sacrum  factum  in  the 

109 


110       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

world  is  the  act  of  giving  ourselves.  We  may  give 
ourselves  in  many  ways  and  in  many  degrees,  but  it  is 
never  real  sacrifice  unless  its  spirit  is  love  and  its  form 
is  mercy.  We  have  seen  that  that  which  our  Lord 
encountered,  and  in  opposition  to  which  His  whole 
ministry  took  shape,  in  the  spirit  of  His  time,  was  not 
so  much  the  formality,  the  hypocrisy,  the  deadness 
which  prevailed,  as  that  worse  thing  that  underlay  it 
all,  the  total  absence  of  sympathy,  pity,  compassion, 
love.  These  are  the  things  that  fill  and  constitute  and 
make  life.  These  are  the  fulfilling  of  the  law,  the 
works  of  righteousness,  the  offerings  up  of  sacrifice; 
and  under  the  consecrated  names  of  law,  righteous- 
ness, and  sacrifice,  to  be  daily  performing  acts  not 
only  devoid  but  contradictory  of  these,  that  was  to 
Him  the  great  and  unforgivable  offence. 

The  point  of  the  beatitude,  however,  upon  which  I 
desire  most  to  touch  is  not  the  meaning  or  the  impor- 
tance of  mercy,  which  our  Lord's  ovra  words  and  acts 
ought  to  make  plain  enough  to  us.  It  is  rather  this: 
How  the  weakening  and  lowering  effects  of  the  being 
mere  objects  or  recipients  of  mercy  are  always  by  our 
Lord  Himself  counteracted  and  corrected  by  the  con- 
dition laid  upon  us  of  being  subjects  no  less,  or  doers, 
of  mercy.  The  point  has  been  already  touched  upon, 
but  it  is  of  too  much  importance  not  to  be  again  and 
again  emphasized.  There  is  nothing  in  these  days  so 
presumed  upon  as  the  mercy  of  God.  We  confirm 
ourselves  in  our  indolence  and  indifference,  in  our 
weaknesses  and  failures  and  neglects,  in  our  faults, 
our  vices,  our  sins,  with  the  thought  that  God  is  merci- 


The  Beatitudes  111 

ful,  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  His  goodness  that  we 
should  reap  the  natural  consequences  of  our  omissions 
and  our  commissions.  There  are  no  allowances  needed, 
and  there  are  no  allowances  whatsoever  made  for  us 
under  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  There  was  all  the 
allowance  in  the  world  needed,  and  all  made,  in  nature 
and  under  the  law.  Where  that  was  demanded  of  us 
which  we  had  not  to  give,  and  that  required  of  us  which 
we  were  unable  to  perform,  there  was  need  for  over- 
looking and  passing  by  and  condoning.  But  Chris- 
tianity demands  nothing  of  us  that  it  does  not  give,  and 
what  it  gives  it  cannot  but  demand.  Suppose  that 
when  our  Lord  gave  to  the  impotent  man  by  His  word 
to  arise  and  walk,  He  had  not  required  of  the  man  on 
his  part  to  arise  and  walk,  —  of  what  effect  or  account 
would  have  been  the  gift  ?  Christianity  gives  us  all 
things,  but  it  requires  of  us  absolutely  the  all  things 
which  it  gives  us.  Not  to  require  of  us  all  things  would 
be  just  so  far  to  fall  short  of  giving  us  the  all  things. 
Of  course  it  requires  only  as  it  gives.  As  it  gives  only 
as  we  can  receive,  so  it  requires  only  as  we  can  render. 
God  does  not,  for  example,  give  us  the  whole  of  His 
righteousness  at  once  in  fact,  because  we  are  incapable 
of  receiving  it  all  instantaneously.  But  He  does  give 
it  to  us  all,  as  it  is  complete  in  Jesus  Christ,  in  faith 
and  in  hope.  God  does  not  therefore  require  of  us  in 
ourselves  now  the  whole  righteousness  of  Christ.  But 
He  does  require  of  us  supremely  to  desire  and  intend 
it,  to  believe  in  it,  to  hope  for  it,  to  appropriate  it  to 
ourselves  in  anticipation,  to  work  for  it  and  to  patiently 
wait  for  it.     He  means  us  to  mean  righteousness  as 


112       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

He  Himself  means  it,  for  otherwise  how  can  He  give  it 
to  us  ?  —  Whatever  God  may  give  and  however  God 
may  give,  beyond  our  actual  reception  and  use  it  can 
only  be  ours  in  faith  and  hope,  and  within  our  recep- 
tion and  use  it  is  ours  in  fact  only  as  these  have  made 
them  so.  So,  to  return  to  our  text,  it  is  a  delusion  to 
suppose  that  we  may  obtain  mercy  otherwise  than  as 
we  ourselves  feel  and  show  mercy.  Only  so  much  of 
what  is  given  or  done  to  us  becomes  ours  and  enters 
into  our  own  salvation  as  we  ourselves  give  and  do  of 
it.  All  that  is  not  yet  assimilated  and  converted  into 
ourselves  is  ours  either  not  at  all,  or  is  ours  as  yet  only 
in  faith  and  hope. 

Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God. 
The  blessedness  promised  is  the  vision  of  God,  and  the 
condition  attached  is  the  purity  of  our  own  organ  of 
spiritual  or  divine  vision.  There  was  nothing  upon 
which  our  Lord  dwelt  more  solemnly  than  upon  the 
conditions  within  ourselves  of  the  knowledge  of  spiritual 
things.  The  hopeless  sin  of  the  Pharisees  was  their 
spiritual  blindness.  They  had  all  but,  if  not  quite, 
sinned  away  the  power  of  spiritual  vision.  They  could 
not  see  the  light  because  they  had  no  longer  eyes  for  the 
light.  \^Tien  they  had  got  to  the  point  not  only  of  not 
recognizing  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  but  even  of  seeing  in 
Him  Beelzebub,  and  so  calling  light  darkness,  then 
our  Lord  pronounces  them  on  the  brink  of  the  irre- 
parable, the  unforgivable  sin,  the  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost.  And  what  is  that  sin,  for  which  in  the  very 
nature  of  it  there  is  no  repentance  and  from  which 
there  can  be  no  salvation  ?     It  is  the  sin  of  having 


The  Beatitudes  113 

sinned  away  the  power  of  repentance  or  the  possibility 
of  salvation.  Our  Lord  says  that  blasphemy  against 
Himself  may  be  forgiven;  indeed,  all  their  sins  shall 
be  forgiven  unto  the  sons  of  men,  and  their  blasphemies 
wherewithsoever  they  shall  blaspheme;  but  whosoever 
shall  blaspheme  against  the  Holy  Spirit  hath  never 
forgiveness,  but  is  guilty  of  an  eternal  sin.  The  blas- 
phemy consisted  in  attributing  to  Jesus  an  unclean 
spirit,  and  the  guilt  lay  not  in  the  offence  to  Him  but 
in  the  condition  it  revealed  in  themselves.  To  call 
cleanness  uncleanness,  and  light  darkness,  and  good 
evil,  betrays  the  last  degree  of  moral  blindness,  the 
atrophy  and  death  of  the  very  organ  of  spiritual  vision. 
We  may  sin  against  the  Word  of  God,  and  even  in 
supposable  cases  be  blameless;  because  that  is  a  light 
without  us,  and  we  may  be  honestly  mistaken  about  it. 
Circumstances  and  conditions  of  which  we  are  inno- 
cent may  conceal  it  from  us.  But  the  Spirit  of  God 
is  a  light  within  us;  it  is  not  the  outward  light  for  the 
eye,  but  the  inward  eye  for  the  light;  and  sin  against 
that  is  a  different  thing.  Aristotle  asks  what  sort  of 
ignorance  it  is  that  excuses  a  man;  and  answers  prac- 
tically as  follows:  An  objective  ignorance,  ignorance 
of  the  thing,  may  excuse;  but  subjective  ignorance, 
ignorance  in  the  man,  does  not  excuse.  Our  Lord 
says.  The  light  of  the  body  is  the  eye.  If  thine  eye  be 
single,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light.  But  if 
thine  eye  be  evil,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  dark- 
ness. If  therefore  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness, 
how  great  is  the  darkness !  The  light  that  is  in  thee  — 
what  is  that.?     It  is,  not  the  light  for  the  eye,  but  — 


114       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

the  eye  for  the  light.  The  Word  of  God  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  objective  divine  revelation  to  us;  the  Spirit  of 
God  is  the  principle  in  us  of  subjective  vision,  recep- 
tion, and  appropriation  of  the  divine  light  and  life. 
If  one  stood  at  midnight  and  could  see  no  light,  it 
would  not  be  irreparable.  The  trouble  is  with  the 
light,  not  in  the  eye.  But  if  he  stood  at  midday  and 
could  see  no  light,  it  would  indeed  be  irreparable. 

The  clear  of  spiritual  vision  are  the  pure,  the  clean, 
in  heart.  Our  Lord  calls  it  the  simplex,  the  simple 
or  the  single,  eye;  the  eye  that  sees  the  thing  it  looks 
at  because  it  is  not  looking  at  so  many  other  things  at 
the  same  time.  How  mixed  and  sullied  are  our 
thoughts  of  God,  our  communion  with  God,  our  ser- 
vice of  God,  our  very  desire  for  God  —  with  other 
things !  It  is  the  other  things  —  that  share  us  with 
Him,  and  take  the  larger  share  —  that  stand  between 
and  hide  Him  from  our  sight.  Seek  ye  first  the  king- 
dom of  God  and  His  righteousness,  and  all  these  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you. 

The  seventh  beatitude  must  have  had  a  very  deep 
significance  for  Jesus  Himself.  If  He  meant  it  with 
all  the  meaning  it  is  susceptible  of,  it  includes  and 
expresses  within  itself  the  whole  of  His  own  divine 
human  blessedness.  What  was  it  to  Him  to  be  the 
great  peacemaker  between  God  and  man,  between 
man  and  man,  between  all  things  that  are  at  variance 
and  in  discord  in  all  the  world !  And  it  expresses  within 
itself  also,  implicitly  at  least,  the  method  as  well  as  the 
goal  and  reward  of  the  great  reconciliation.  It  is  only 
in  accomplished  and  realized  sonship  that  God  and 


The  Beatitudes  115 

man,  or  God  and  creation,  can  be  and  will  be  made  at 
one.  In  no  other  relation  than  that  predestined  one 
of  sons,  the  foreordained  end  of  the  whole  creation, 
can  the  one  spirit,  the  one  law,  the  one  life  of  God 
reign  through  all  things,  and  the  universe  of  God  be 
at  peace.  Again  and  again  we  cannot  but  see  that  the 
universal  order  which  is  the  manifest  meaning  and  end 
of  things  is  no  mere  material  or  natural  order.  It  is 
an  order  not  of  things  but  of  wills;  it  is  a  moral  order, 
a  kingdom  of  righteousness.  And  if  a  real  and  abiding 
order  of  wills,  then  it  must  be  something  more  and 
higher  still,  an  eternal  unity  and  harmony  of  spirits,  a 
blessed  reign  of  love.  When  God  shall  become  the 
All-Father  in  His  world  through  all  becoming  His  sons 
or  His  Son,  then  shall  love  and  unity  reign,  and  the 
task  of  the  great  Peacemaker  be  accomplished. 

When  St.  Paul  speaks  of  God  having  been  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself,  he  adds  that  unto 
us  has  been  committed  the  word  of  reconciliation,  the 
continuation  and  completion  of  the  mission  and  min- 
istiy  of  peace.  The  work  of  the  Peacemaker  goes  on 
only  through  the  peacemakers.  We  are  ambassadors 
for  Christ,  as  though  God  were  entreating  by  us  and 
beseeching  all  to  be  reconciled.  As  working  together 
with  God  we  entreat  also.  We  do  not  remember  as  we 
should  that,  as  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling,  so  Christ 
is  in  us  reconciling;  that  all  the  presence  or  operation 
of  God  or  of  Christ  in  the  world  now  and  henceforth 
is  by  the  working  in  and  through  us  of  the  common 
spirit  and  life  of  them  and  us.  We  now  are  the  incar- 
nation, not  only  incarnated  but  incarnating;  we  are 


116       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

the  atonement,  atoned  and  atoning.  What  is  doing 
upon  earth  of  peacemaking,  we  are  the  doers  of  it.  It 
is  the  work  distinctively  not  of  the  Father  nor  of  the 
Son,  but  of  the  Spirit.  The  love  of  the  Father  is  com- 
plete, the  grace  of  the  Son  is  finished.  Only  the  task  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  remains  to  be  accomplished.  And  what 
is  that  task?  It  is  first  to  bring  us  into  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  life,  and  then  —  and  so  —  to  bring  us  into 
the  fellowship  with  the  work  of  God  in  Christ,  which 
is  also  the  work  of  Christ  in  us.  I  and  my  Father  are 
one,  there  is  the  community  of  life.  My  Father  worketh 
and  I  work,  there  is  the  community  of  work.  And  the 
life  and  the  work  cannot  be  separated;  the  work  is  the 
life.  We  say  that  this  is  the  dispensation  of  the  Spirit. 
That  can  only  mean  that  this  is  the  time  for  our  part 
in  the  dispensation  or  economy  of  the  world.  What- 
ever be  the  place  or  the  part  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the 
divine  nature,  as  the  Spirit  of  Father  and  of  Son,  in  the 
world  of  men  the  Holy  Ghost  has  no  other  place  or 
part.  He  cannot  otherwise  manifest  Himself  than  in 
and  as  the  spirit  of  men.  In  the  spiritual  half  at  least 
of  God's  creation,  only  that  is  done  which  we  also  do, 
only  that  is  accomplished  or  attained  which  is  accom- 
plished or  attained  through  us. 

There  is  what  we  call  a  present  peace,  which,  as  we 
shall  see,  plays  no  small  part  in  our  immediate  relations 
with  God.  As  the  very  expression  suggests,  it  is  some- 
thing provisional  and  temporary.  It  is  the  faith  and 
hope  which  we  have,  the  possession  and  enjoyment  in 
anticipation,  of  the  real  and  perfect  peace  which  shall 
be  ours  in  the  future,  —  that  future  which  means  to 


The  Beatitudes  117 

us,  whensoever  and  wheresoever,  the  attainment  of 
our  goal  and  the  consummation  of  ourselves.  For 
there  is  no  real  peace  save  in  real  and  perfect  oneness 
with  God,  and  in  God  with  all  others  and  all  things 
else.  The  present  peace  lies  in  the  assurance  that  God 
has  provided  that  and  holds  it  in  trust  for  us  in  Jesus 
Christ,  and  that  it  is  not  only  ours  already  in  faith,  but 
that  it  becomes  ours  in  fact,  just  so  fast  as  we  can  our- 
selves make  it  so.  But  from  the  first  we  are  peace- 
havers,  only  as  we  are  peace-lovers  and  peace-makers, 
and  nothing  so  constitutes  us  in  fact  sons  of  God  as 
peace-loving,  peace-making,  and  peace-having. 

I  have  after  all  dwelt  so  long  upon  the  beatitudes 
because  to  consider  them  at  all  convinces  us  that  in 
them  we  have  the  whole  spirit,  not  only  of  the  whole 
teaching,  but  of  the  whole  life  of  our  Lord.  More- 
over, we  have  clearly  stated  in  them  all  the  conditions, 
the  causes,  and  the  rewards,  of  the  Gospel  which  it  is 
our  object  to  define.  Let  us  see  if  we  can,  in  conclu- 
sion, reduce  all  these  to  a  unity  among  themselves,  and 
so  give  a  more  single  view  of  our  salvation  in  Christ. 
All  that  we  need  or  want,  to  supply  our  deficiencies  or 
supplement  our  insuflficiencies ;  all  that  we  must  be  or 
do  or  accomplish  or  attain  for  that  completeness  of 
ourselves  which  is  synonymous  with  our  blessedness; 
all  that  perfection  of  relation  with  God  and  others, 
which  is  necessary  to  the  perfect  activity  and  blessed- 
ness of  ourselves;  all  that  attitude  toward  persons  and 
things,  toward  all  the  particulars  as  well  as  the  totality 
of  our  environment,  which  as  our  own  right  reaction 
upon  them  is  the  appointed  means  of  forming  our 


118       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

characters,  determining  our  personalities,  and  shaping 
our  destinies,  —  in  a  word,  everything  essential  to  our 
being  ourselves,  performing  our  parts,  and  achieving 
our  ends,  we  see  realized  and  illustrated  in  the  person 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Therefore  we  say  that  the  knowing 
Him  is  our  Gospel,  and  the  being  what  He  is  is  our 
salvation. 


THE  DEATH  OF  JESUS 

We  come  to  the  last  of  the  beatitudes,  the  blessed- 
ness of  persecution,  calumny,  and  martyrdom.  I 
presume  that  no  view  of  the  Gospel  could  dispense  with 
the  death  of  Jesus.  Certain  it  is  that  all  the  Gospels 
concentrate  attention  upon  that  as  containing  and 
conveying  the  meaning  of  all  that  our  Lord  was  or 
accomplished  upon  earth.  The  significance  of  the 
death  has  by  some  been  treated  as  a  second  thought 
even  on  the  part  of  Jesus  Himself;  as  though  failing, 
and  foreseeing  the  failure,  of  realizing  an  external  king- 
dom in  His  life,  He  fell  back  upon  the  conception  and 
plan  of  an  ideal  spiritual  kingdom  to  be  realized  through 
His  death.  The  Gospels  know  no  such  possible  change 
of  view.  The  mind  of  Jesus  as  they  reveal  it  is  from 
first  to  last,  and  long  before  those  nearest  Him  could 
comprehend  it,  set  upon  the  kingdom  as  He  actually 
founded  it,  and  set  against  every  temptation  to  any 
other  conception  of  it. 

Accepting,  then,  the  death  as  the  vital  feature  in  any 
possible  appreciation  of  the  place  and  part  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  human  history,  what  are  the  different  signifi- 
cances that  may  be  found  in  it?    From  the  point  of 

119 


120       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

view  of  this  first  part  there  can  be  but  one.  In  it  we 
make  the  Gospel  to  consist  in  the  acts,  character,  and 
life  of  Jesus.  He  was  in  our  human  nature,  under  our 
human  conditions,  in  our  human  life,  that  the  revela- 
tion of  which  to  us  is  a  gospel  and  the  participation  in 
which  is  salvation.  Everything,  then,  in  this  gospel 
turns  upon  the  personal  attitude  and  action  and  char- 
acter of  our  Lord;  the  manner  and  matter  of  man  He 
was ;  the  truth,  the  beauty,  the  good  He  found  in  or  put 
into  our  common  humanity;  the  worth,  the  value,  the 
blessedness.  He  drew  and  enables  and  teaches  us  to 
draw  from  it.  This  being  the  case,  the  significance  and 
value  of  the  death  must  have  lain  chiefly  if  not  wholly 
in  the  fact  that  it  is  only  death  that  sets  the  perfect  seal 
or  places  the  final  valuation  upon  life.  Call  no  man 
happy  until  he  is  dead,  is  a  very  old  prescription.  And 
that,  according  to  Aristotle,  because  it  is  not  enough 
to  have  lived  well,  if  one  has  not  died  "accordingly." 
What  gives  still  further  significance  to  the  death  of 
Jesus  is  that  it  was  not  merely  a  death,  but  such  a  death 
as  fully  tested  and  tried  and  proved  every  quality  of 
His  life.  The  application  of  such  a  criterion  is  neces- 
sary not  only  to  the  testing  and  measuring  of  what  has 
been  attained  in  the  life,  but  equally  to  the  completing 
and  perfecting  of  what  has  been  so  attained.  To  stop 
short  of  the  final  test  is  to  fall  short  of  the  final  per- 
fection. For  one  of  the  lessons  of  such  a  life  and  death, 
of  that  supreme  life  and  death,  is  that  not  only  are  we 
proved,  but  we  are  made  and  perfected  by  the  things 
we  suffer. 
The  profit  to  us,  then,  of  a  study  of  the  details  of  the 


Tiie  Death  of  Jesus  121 

last  hours  of  Jesus  Christ  will  consist  in  their  perfect 
revelation  and  illustration  of  the  qualities  that  charac- 
terized Himself.  An  analysis  of  these  will  be  our  best 
review  and  confirmation  in  His  death  of  all  that  we 
have  been  learning  in  His  life.  Referring  to  types  of 
which  we  have  spoken  of  highest  human  action,  and 
looking  for  these  in  the  typical  attitude  of  Jesus  during 
the  night  and  day  of  His  final  trial,  we  might  say  from 
the  Greek  standpoint  that  what  most  characterized 
Him  was  His  perfect  self-control  or  self-possession, 
the  mastery  and  command  under  seemingly  impossible 
conditions  of  His  reason  and  His  will.  Circumstances 
could  not  have  been  rendered  more  difficult  for  the 
exercise  of  these  —  in  the  long  night  in  Gethsemane  of 
apprehension  and  heaviness  unto  death  and  agonized 
prayer  for  submission  and  endurance;  in  the  surprise 
and  panic  and  desertion  of  the  early  dawn,  in  which 
life  and  hope  and  courage  are  at  their  ebb ;  in  the  shame- 
ful and  exasperating  dragging  to  and  fro  from  Caiaphas 
to  Annas,  and  from  Pilate  to  Herod;  in  the  circum- 
stances that  need  no  recital  of  His  brutal  treatment, 
the  weary  way  to  Calvary,  and  the  painful  hanging 
upon  the  cross.  I  mention  these  dark  details  not  to 
appeal  to  that  sentimental  sympathy  which  has  been 
too  large  a  part  of  our  Christianity,  but  to  call  attention 
to  what  would  be  to  us  the  practical  impossibility  under 
such  circumstances  of  one's  retaining  possession  of 
one's  whole  self  and  one's  best  self.  The  right  reason, 
the  power  still  to  see  things  as  they  are,  in  their  right 
relation  and  right  proportion;  and  the  free  will,  the 
will  uninfluenced  and  unbiassed  by  selfish  passion  or 


122       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthly  Life 

personal  prejudice,  —  these  were  the  Greek  test  and 
measure  of  the  perfect  manhood  and  its  highest  activity. 
We  have  it  perhaps  best  expressed  in  what  has  been  so 
happily  characterized  as  the  sweet  reasonableness  of 
Jesus.  And  surely  never  was  there  more  difficult  and 
therefore  more  crucial  or  testing  opportunity  to  exer- 
cise a  sweet  reasonableness  than  when  Jesus,  looking 
down  from  the  cross  upon  the  perpetrators  of  the  typical 
crime  of  the  world,  could  feel  as  well  as  say.  Father, 
forgive  them ;  for  they  know  not  what  they  do.  There 
is  in  these  words  not  only  a  generous  sentiment  but  a 
just  and  righteous  judgment.  Even  there  there  was 
room  for  an  audire  alteram  'partem,  a  place  for  the  chari- 
table construction,  an  opportunity  for  finding  excuse 
and  making  allowance.  And  no  weak  and  sentimental 
complaisance  was  there  in  it,  but  eternal  truth,  as  well 
as  boundless  love  and  pity.  There  is  never  a  situation, 
not  even  in  the  typical  crime,  where  there  is  not  some- 
thing of  the  truth,  though  it  be  an  exaggerated  truth, 
that  tout  connaitre  est  tout  pardonner.  To  see  all  the 
other  side  in  the  extremest  case  of  others  against  our- 
selves, to  make  all  allowance,  to  do  all  justice,  is  a 
triumph  of  something  indeed  higher  and  more  akin 
to  God  than  even  right  reason  and  just  judgment, 
something  without  which  under  such  circumstances 
these  would  be  impossible;  but  it  is  a  triumph  of  these 
also.  And  so  what  all  His  life  had  illustrated,  the  death 
most  perfectly  and  completely  confirmed,  of  the  divine 
reasonableness  of  Jesus,  in  thought,  feeling,  and  action. 
There  is  not  one  of  the  virtues  of  the  Greek  catalogue 
that  may  not  be  illustrated,  or  paralleled  on  a  greater 


The  Death  of  Jesus  123 

or  a  truer  scale,  in  the  personal  bearing  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Even  that  most  Greek  of  all  the  virtues,  the  virtue  of 
magnificence,  the  rendering  of  the  great  service,  the 
bearing  of  the  great  burden  or  expense,  for  the  public 
weal  or  the  glory  of  the  commonwealth,  and  in  the 
greatest  way,  —  what  was  that  in  comparison  with  the 
act  of  Him  who  was  all,  did  all,  endured  all,  gave  all. 
and  all  for  the  sake  of  the  supremest  good  and  the 
highest  glory  of  all!  And  did  it  all  not  for  the  honor 
or  the  fame  of  it,  but  at  the  cost  of  misunderstanding 
and  shame  and  rejection. 

When  we  pass  from  the  Greek  reasonableness  to  the 
Hebrew  righteousness  of  our  Lord's  attitude  under  the 
supreme  test,  there  is  much  more  to  say.  The  prin- 
ciple involved  there  is  that  of  obedience,  the  utter  devo- 
tion of  love,  service,  and  sacrifice,  to  the  will  and  word 
of  God.  We  have  seen  that  that  which  might  most 
appropriately  have  been  written  upon  the  earthly  life 
of  Jesus  are  the  words,  Lo,  I  am  come  to  do  thy  will, 
O  God.  Without  undertaking  as  yet  to  define  precisely 
what  that  will  was,  there  is  no  question  that  from  the 
beginning  He  felt  that  He  had  a  definite  work  of  God 
to  accomplish.  Now,  at  least,  it  is  as  far  as  we  can  go 
to  say  that  that  work  was  the  sanctifying  of  human 
nature,  the  righteousing  of  human  action  and  character, 
the  perfecting  of  human  life,  in  His  own  person.  And 
so  far  as  His  person  can  touch  and  influence  all  other 
persons,  by  revealing  and  communicating  to  them  the 
secret,  the  meaning,  and  the  motive  of  human  life  in 
general,  we  might  say  that  His  work  was  to  be  the 
sanctifying  and  righteousing  and  perfecting  of  humanity 


124       The  Gospel  of  the  Earthhj  Life 

in  general.  At  any  rate,  whatever  it  might  be  in  its 
completeness,  our  Lord's  lifelong  devotion  to  the  will 
and  work  of  God  is  confirmed  and  perfected  in  His 
final  suflFerings  and  death.  Early  in  His  career  He 
began  to  perceive  that  that  was  what  it  was  obliged  to 
lead  to.  And  Jesus  was  no  enthusiastic  or  fanatical 
seeker  after  persecution  or  martyrdom.  He  evaded 
and  avoided  it  as  long  as  it  was  right  to  do  so.  And 
when  it  was  no  longer  right  to  do  so,  He  went  with  His 
face  fixed  as  a  flint  to  meet  it,  but  He  went  with  a  natural 
human  reluctance  and  heaviness  of  heart.  As  His 
hour  approached.  He  prayed  to  be  saved  from  it;  as  the 
cup  was  presented  to  His  lips,  He  entreated  to  the  last 
that  He  might  be  spared  the  drinking  it.  But  all  this 
only  shows  the  hardness  of  the  test  to  which  He  was 
put,  and  so  measures  the  limit  to  which  His  obedience 
was  willing  to  go.  There  were  other  things  He  loved; 
He  loved  life;  but  above  all  things  He  loved  the  will  of 
God. 

It  ought  not  to  be  hard  for  us  to  understand  why 
the  will  of  God  should  have  gone  so  far  and  demanded 
so  much;  why  He  spared  not  His  own  Son  to  the  very 
limit,  and  delivered  Him  up  to  the  fateful  uttermost. 
And  Jesus  Himself  was  wise  enough  to  understand, 
and  great  enough  to  accept.  Father,  the  hour  is  come. 
Glorify  thy  Son,  that  thy  Son  may  glorify  thee!  Only 
the  perfect  cross  could  win  for  humanity  the  perfect 
crown.  He  had  a  baptism  to  be  baptized  withal,  and 
how  was  He  straitened  until  He  was  baptized  with  it! 
But  it  was  the  world's  travail,  and  the  world's  new 
birth. 


The  Death  of  Jesus  125 

But  it  was  not  Greek  manhood  in  the  perfection  of 
all  the  virtues,  nor  Hebrew  righteousness  in  all  the 
truth  of  all  the  sacrifices,  that  shone  most  brightly  in 
every  act  and  attitude  of  Jesus  in  the  day  of  His  trial. 
It  was  that  which  is  the  divine  heart  and  soul  without 
which  virtue  and  righteousness  themselves  are  nothing, 
and  with  which  they  are  made  divine.  It  is  the  pity 
and  compassion  and  love  of  Jesus  that,  as  they  had 
been  the  supreme  motive  of  His  life,  so  they  burn 
brightest  in  His  death.  Having  loved  His  own  —  and 
who,  on  His  part,  at  least,  are  not  His  own  ? — He  loved 
them  unto  the  end.  Sympathy,  we  are  told,  the  bearing 
one  another's  burdens,  is  the  law  of  Christ.  Was  ever 
sympathy  —  leisure  from  oneself,  forgetfulness  of  self, 
thoughtfulness  for  others,  carried  to  such  length  under 
such  circumstances!  The  eve  of  the  day  is  spent  in 
preparing  His  disciples.  In  the  garden  of  agony  His 
concern  is  for  them :  Watch  and  pray,  lest  ye  enter  into 
temptation  —  that  is.  Keep  awake,  and  give  yourselves 
to  prayer,  for  a  great  trial  is  coming  upon  you.  When 
the  surprise  and  the  seizure  come.  He  comes  forward 
and  says,  I  am  He  whom  ye  seek ;  let  these  go  in  peace. 
When  Malthus'  ear  is  cut  off,  He  rebukes  Peter,  and 
heals  the  wound.  Before  the  high  priests  He  is  only 
silent  because  He  knows  words  are  useless.  In  the 
midst  of  His  own  cruel  and  exasperating  tormenting. 
He  has  time  for  a  feeling  and  look  of  pain  and  sorrow 
for  Peter's  cowardly  denial.  In  the  interview  with 
Pilate  there  is  a  touch  of  pity  and  sympathy  for  the 
vacillating  governor;  he  was  at  least  not  the  most  guilty. 
Under  the  heavy  burden  of  His  cross  He  could  feel  and 


126       The  Gospel  of  the  EaHhly  Life 

say,  Daughters  of  Jerusalem,  weep  not  for  me,  but  weep 
for  yourselves  —  in  sorrowful  anticipation  of  what  the 
guilty  city  was  bringing  upon  itself.  Under  the  first 
agony  of  the  cross,  His  thought  was  of  His  mother,  and 
upon  a  provision  for  her  future  care  and  comfort; 
then  for  His  crucifiers,  that  God  would  take  into 
account  their  ignorance  of  what  they  were  doing; 
then  for  the  penitent  thief,  that  he  should  be  perhaps 
the  first  beneficiary  of  the  pardon  He  was  Himself 
earning  for  all  the  world.  And  at  the  very  last,  in  the 
bitter  cry.  My  God,  My  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken 
me,  is  there  not  something  which  breathes  more  thought 
of  the  possibility  of  God's  abandoning  than  of  His  own 
sad  abandonment? 

There  will  seem  to  many  to  be  a  vagueness  and  un- 
satisfactoriness  in  the  conclusion,  that,  after  we  have 
recognized  in  Jesus  Himself  the  claim  of  a  very  definite 
mission,  purpose,  and  work  in  the  world,  we  should 
ourselves  then  find  nothing  in  that  work  more  definite 
or  explicit  than  simply  the  being  the  man  He  was. 
What  more  or  more  definite  meaning  could  He  have 
had  for  us,  what  higher  dignity  or  blessedness  could 
He  have  conferred  upon  us,  than  the  completing  of  our 
nature,  the  perfecting  of  our  life,  the  accomplishing 
of  our  destiny  ?  But  in  doing  that.  He  did  much  more 
than  that.  In  being  the  perfect  man  He  was,  under 
the  impossible  conditions  in  which  He  became  so.  He 
threw  a  new  light  upon  those  conditions  which,  prac- 
tically for  us,  solves  the  problem  or  reveals  the  mystery 
of  evil.  We  have  nothing  to  do  with  a  theoretic  con- 
struction of  the  universe.     Our  business  is  to  explain 


The  Death  of  Jesus  127 

what  it  is,  and  not  why  or  how  it  is,  or  became,  what  it 
is.  There  is  a  —  in  the  very  highest  sense  —  natural 
sequence  and  relation,  and  therefore  a  natural  fitness, 
between  all  that  Jesus  Christ  is  in  our  humanity  and 
all  the  circumstances,  causes,  and  conditions  under 
which  and  through  which  He  became  what  He  is.  It 
is  not  in  the  power  of  our  human  imagination  to  con- 
ceive, or  of  our  reason  to  suggest,  how  our  Lord  could 
have  attained  the  height  of  the  spiritual  and  moral 
manhood  for  which  He  stands,  otherwise  than  under 
the  conditions  and  by  the  process  through  which  He 
did  actually  attain  it.  The  evil  that  is  in  the  world, 
just  as  it  is  in  the  world,  is  there  for  this  reason,  that 
the  holiness,  the  righteousness,  the  spiritual  and  moral 
life,  which  are  our  only  natural  or  supernatural  com- 
pletion, perfection,  and  blessedness,  cannot  come  into 
existence  except  through  conflict  with  and  conquest  of 
just  that  particular  evil  of  the  world.  What  more  do 
we  want,  or  what  more  can  we  possibly  know,  than 
that?  When  we  have  said  that,  through  simply  being 
what  He  was,  Jesus  Christ  has  revealed  to  us  what  God 
is,  what  we  are,  why  evil  is,  and  how  good  is  to  be 
achieved  and  attained,  have  we  not  said  enough  to 
explain  and  justify  all  the  claims  that  our  Lord  made 
or  could  have  made  for  His  divine  mission  among  us  ? 
But,  for  my  own  part,  I  am  ready  to  admit  that  we  have 
not  said  all  that  is  to  be  said.  What  remains,  however, 
must  be  said  from  yet  higher  points  of  view. 

We  have  completed  now  what  I  have  called  the  Gos- 
pel of  our  Lord's  manhood  and  life  upon  earth,  and  I 
wish  to  repeat  what  was  said  in  the  beginning.     In 


128       The  Gospel  of  the  EaHhly  Life 

giving  so  much  space  to  this  part  of  our  study  of  the 
Gospel,  the  motive  is  not  to  make  concession,  or  even 
to  do  justice,  to  new  or  modern  points  of  view.  It  is 
rather  to  endeavour  to  make  for  ourselves  full  proof 
and  use  of  the  truth,  or  aspects  of  the  truth,  which 
modern  knowledge,  and  modem  methods  of  knowledge, 
have  revealed  or  opened  up  to  us  in  the  unchanged  and 
unchangeable  Gospel.  That  the  new  light  does  not 
change  our  old  Gospel,  I  hope  will  be  made  sufficiently 
apparent  in  the  remaining  parts  of  the  discussion. 


PART  SECOND 
THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  WORK 

OR 

THE  RESURRECTION 


XI 

THE  SAVIOUR  FROM  SIN 

We  have  up  to  this  point  endeavoured  to  confine 
ourselves  to  that  in  the  Gospels  which  is  matter  of  pure 
record.  It  is  impossible  to  keep  the  most  significant 
facts  or  events  quite  separate  from  some  explanation 
of  their  significance,  but  an  attempt  at  least  has  been 
made  not  to  anticipate  the  Christian  interpretation  of 
the  distinctive  facts  of  Christianity.  The  Gospels,  as 
we  have  seen,  —  at  least  the  Synoptics,  —  are  to  a  very 
successful  degree  strictly  reportorial.  But  even  in 
them  there  is  the  beginning  of  that  interpretation  which 
eventually  shapes  itself  into  Christian  doctrine  and 
dogma.  How  much  of  this  interpretation  is  the  result 
of  reflection  after  all  the  facts  it  is  hard  to  say.  Let 
us,  to  be  sure  of  being  fair  with  ourselves,  concede  that 
it  all  is,  that  every  trace  of  later  Christian  doctrine  that 
appears  in  the  earlier  Gospels  is  at  least  of  their  latest 
matter  and  belongs  only  to  their  latest  form.  There 
will  still,  of  course,  remain  the  diflSculty  of  determining 
in  many  particular  cases  what  is  of  pure  record,  and 
what  of  later  interpretation,  but  we  can  do  our  part  to 
reduce  this  to  a  minimum. 

We  saw  at  the  close  of  the  previous  part  that  from 
a  mere  record  of  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus,  His  words 

131 


132  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

and  acts,  it  is  difficult  to  obtain  a  single  definite  con- 
ception of  what  we  call  His  work,  by  which  we  mean 
the  thing  He  was  on  the  earth  to  do  and  the  thing  which 
He  actually  accomplished  by  His  life  and  death.  I 
propose  to  show  that  Christian  interpretation  began 
upon  this  question  at  the  very  earliest  possible,  and 
that  it  pursued  it  with  undeviating  consistency  to  its 
successful  answer.  We  shall  first  trace  its  history, 
and  then  discuss  its  meaning.  And  we  may  anticipate 
the  concurrent  conclusion  of  the  New  Testament  upon 
the  point  in  what  was  perhaps  its  latest  expression  of 
it:  We  know  that  He  was  manifested  to  take  away  sins. 
The  most  significant  and  characteristic  expression 
of  the  result  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  contained 
in  the  words,  The  Remission  of  Sin.  Remission,  or 
the  putting  away,  of  sin,  includes  two  ideas,  or  perhaps 
more  correctly  two  stages  of  the  same  idea.  It  means 
a  real  putting  away  by  the  New  Testament  process  of 
sanctification.  But  it  also  means  the  provisional  put- 
ting away  by  the  equally  New  Testament  act  of  divine 
pardon  or  forgiveness.  Each  of  these  two  conceptions 
plays  an  important  part  in  the  drama  of  redemption  or 
final  deliverance  and  freedom  from  sin.  And  the  com- 
plete meaning  of  each  and  perfect  relating  of  both  is 
no  small  part  of  New  Testament  doctrine.  In  tracing 
that  doctrine  through  the  three  earlier  Gospels,  we 
shall  take  those  Gospels  as  they  stand  in  their  critical 
integrity,  but  we  will  remember  that,  for  example,  the 
parts  relating  to  the  infancy  are  the  latest,  and  that 
whatever  there  is  in  them  of  true  record  there  is  also  a 
decided  beginning  of  later  reflection.     And  even  of  the 


The  Saviour  from  Sin  133 

ministry  of  John  the  Baptist,  while  the  historical  fact 
of  the  intimate  connection  with  it  of  the  career  of  Jesus 
is  of  much  clearer  record,  yet  we  must  admit  that  the 
form  it  has  insistently  taken  in  every  one  of  the  records 
shows  the  determined  shaping,  as  we  shall  see,  of  the 
final  doctrine.  But  there  are  the  Gospels  as  they  stood 
in  their  first  complete  forms,  and  if  some  of  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  facts  by  the  Church  has  been  read  back 
into  what  we  think  should  have  been  a  naked  report 
of  the  facts,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  not  true  inter- 
pretation. It  does  go  far  to  prove  that  that  was  the 
Christian  understanding  of  the  facts  from  the  first. 

The  first  page  of  the  Gospels  as  they  stand  reports 
the  fact  that  Jesus  was  so  named  because  He  it  was  — 
the  expected  one  —  who  should  save  his  people  from 
their  sins.  His  mission  and  power  to  do  so  is  explained 
by  a  Messianic  relation  to  God  so  intimate  that  He  may 
be  called  Immanuel,  God  with  us.  In  the — in  this  part 
quite  independent  —  account  of  St.  Luke,  the  announce- 
ment of  the  birth  is  in  the  words.  Unto  you  is  born  this 
day  a  Saviour  who  is  Christ  the  Lord.  And  what  He 
was  to  be  saviour  from  has  already  been  declared  in 
the  prophecy  uttered  upon  John  the  Baptist,  Thou 
shalt  go  before  the  face  of  the  Lord  to  make  ready  His 
ways;  to  give  knowledge  of  salvation  unto  His  people 
in  the  remission  of  their  sins.  When  John  entered 
upon  his  preparatory  ministry,  the  one  burden  of  his 
preaching,  the  one  significance  of  his  baptism,  was 
repentance  unto  the  remission  of  sin.  We  might  not 
attach  so  much  importance  to  this  burden  of  John's, 
which  was  the  burden  also  of  Jesus',  ministry,  but  for 


134  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

its  so  solemn  iteration  in  the  very  last  utterance  of  our 
Lord  Himself  upon  His  departure  from  the  earth. 
Thus  it  is  written,  that  the  Christ  should  suffer,  and 
rise  again  from  the  dead  the  third  day;  and  that  re- 
pentance and  remission  of  sins  should  be  preached  in 
His  name  unto  all  the  nations.  When  the  Spirit  had 
descended  and  the  Church  entered  upon  the  mission 
in  which  Jesus  was  to  be  with  it  to  the  end  of  the  world, 
what  was  first  of  all  the  message  of  St.  Peter?  Him 
did  God  exalt  with  His  right  hand  to  be  a  Prince  and  a 
Saviour,  for  to  give  repentance  and  remission  of  sins. 
And  again.  To  Him  bear  all  the  prophets  witness,  that 
through  His  name  every  one  that  believeth  on  Him 
shall  receive  remission  of  sins.  St.  Paul  takes  up  the 
burden:  Be  it  known  unto  you,  brethren,  that  through 
this  man  is  proclaimed  unto  you  the  remission  of  sins. 
In  his  account  of  his  conversion,  he  repeats  the  words 
of  our  Lord  in  sending  him  to  the  Gentiles,  To  open 
their  eyes,  that  they  may  turn  from  darkness  to  light, 
and  from  the  power  of  Satan  unto  God,  that  they  may 
receive  remission  of  sins,  and  an  inheritance  among 
them  that  are  sanctified  in  me.  In  all  this  long  and 
consistent  line  of  thought,  or  sequence  of  truth,  as  we 
have  followed  it  through  the  Gospels  and  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles,  we  shall  see  how  deeply  rooted  is  the 
entire  system  of  salvation  which  St.  Paul  so  wonder- 
fully elaborates  in  his  epistles.  It  might  all  be  summed 
up  in  the  words,  In  Christ  the  remission  of  our  sin, 
and  the  grace  and  power  of  our  holiness,  our  righteous- 
ness, and  our  life.  The  writer  to  the  Hebrews  follows 
not  one  whit  less  explicitly :  At  the  end  of  the  ages  hath 


The  Saviour  from  Sin  135 

He  been  manifested  to  put  away  sin  by  the  sacrifice 
of  Himself.  And  finally,  St.  John  begins  his  record 
with  the  Baptist's  pointing  to  Jesus  as  the  Lamb  of 
God  who  was  to  take  away  the  sin  of  the  world,  and 
sums  up  his  Gospel,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  words. 
We  know  that  He  was  manifested  to  take  away  sin. 

The  next  point  to  be  observed  is  the  close  and  in- 
variable connection  of  the  remission  of  sin  through 
Jesus  Christ  with  His  death  and  resurrection.  After 
these  had  taken  place,  we  may  safely  say  that  there  is 
no  reference  to  the  remission  of  sin  that  is  not  imme- 
diately so  connected.  This  may  be  illustrated  by  the 
fact  that  the  two  sacraments  instituted  to  bring  us  into 
relation  with  the  life  of  Christ  distinctly  relate  us  to 
Him  through  His  death  and  resurrection.  Through 
these  and  these  alone  is  there  any  fellowship  of  life 
with  Him.  The  only  baptism  unto  remission  of  sin 
is  baptism  into  a  participation  in  His  death  and  resur- 
rection. And  in  the  other  sacrament  that  of  which  we 
partake  is  His  body  broken  and  His  blood  shed  for  the 
remission  of  sin.  It  may  be  said  that  all  this  is  only 
an  interpretation  after  all  the  events.  Yes,  but  it  is 
an  integral  part  of  all  the  Gospels,  and  I  think  we  shall 
more  and  more  feel  the  impossibility  of  escaping  the 
conclusion  that  it  is  the  essential  point  of  the  Gospel. 
That  the  Christ  should  suflFer,  and  rise  again  from  the 
dead,  and  that  repentance  and  remission  of  sins  should 
be  preached  everywhere  in  His  name  —  and  preached 
as  the  result  of  the  death  and  the  resurrection  —  I 
think  that  no  one  who  understands  the  Gospels  can 
fail  to  foresee  all  through  them  that  this  is  their  neces- 


136  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

sary  and  predestined  conclusion.     That  it  is  so,  it  shall 
be  our  most  immediate  object  to  prove. 

It  will  be  said  that  only  by  reading  back  into  it  can 
we  find  any  intentional  reference  in  the  strict  and 
proper  Gospels  to  a  general  or  universal  remission  of 
sin  through  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  prior 
to  that  event.  It  would  not  be  strange  that  it  should 
be  so,  even  though  the  thing  itself  be  true.  Let  us  see 
just  what  we  do  find.  I  do  not  wish  to  press  the  so- 
called  locus  classicus  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark  any 
further  than  the  strictest  criticism  will  go  with  me. 
Our  Lord  concludes  almost  the  most  characteristic 
discussion  in  all  His  teaching  with  the  famous  words. 
The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but 
to  minister,  and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many. 
The  saying  is  capable  of  many  interpretations,  and  for 
the  most  part  has  had  a  very  definite  interpretation 
imported  into  it  from  later  thought.  But  for  all  that, 
to  expunge  or  mutilate  the  saying  itself  would  be,  from 
almost  any  point  of  view,  to  rob  our  Lord  of  His  most 
distinctive  utterance.  That  He  had  a  divine  mission 
for  men,  and  that  He  was  to  give  His  life  for  it,  —  take 
that  away  from  our  conception  of  Jesus,  and  how  much 
remains  ?  We  may  give  different  interpretations,  but 
it  is  impossible  to  sacrifice  the  words  themselves;  there 
is  too  much  of  verisimilitude  in  them.  There  had 
arisen  among  the  disciples  the  question  of  precedence 
in  the  kingdom  that  was  to  be  established.  Then 
Jesus  enunciates  the  cardinal  principle  long  since 
wrought  out  through  or  against  temptation  in  His  own 
life :  Ye  know  that  the  rulers  of  the  Gentiles  lord  it  over 


The  Saviour  from  Sin  137 

them,  and  their  great  ones  exercise  authority  over  them. 
Not  so  shall  it  be  among  you:  but  whosoever  would 
become  great  among  you  shall  be  your  minister:  and 
whosoever  would  be  first  among  you  shall  be  your 
servant.  There  if  anywhere  is  the  one  distinctive 
principle  of  His  life,  as  we  must  all  agree.  But  what 
is  a  drinciple,  even  the  divinest,  by  itself  or  upon  the 
lips  ?  If  our  Lord  had  merely  taught  that,  there  would 
have  been  no  Gospel.  If  He  had  not  merely  taught  it 
but  lived  by  it  as  the  consistent  maxim  of  His  life,  there 
would  still  have  been  no  Gospel.  What  has  made  it  a 
Gospel  is  not  only  the  added  word  but  the  added  fact 
that  the  Son  of  man  gave  His  life  to  prove,  to  establish, 
and  to  make  it  an  efficacious  and  practicable  principle 
in  all  human  life.  From  any  point  of  view  whatsoever, 
if  there  was  gospel  or  salvation  to  be  found  in  or  through 
Jesus  Christ,  it  was  a  gospel  of  salvation  from  sin  to 
holiness,  from  death  to  life,  and  it  was  won  for  us  at 
the  cost  of  His  own  life.  If  the  passage  under  discus- 
sion were,  or  if  it  be,  the  only  one  that  teaches  us  out 
of  our  Lord's  own  mouth  that  His  life  was  to  be  the 
price  of  our  redemption  or  salvation,  still  it  is  so  much 
the  focus  or  goal  of  all  His  teaching,  it  is  so  manifestly 
impossible  to  suggest  or  conceive  any  other  termina- 
tion or  consummation  of  His  work  in  or  for  humanity, 
that  the  thing  carries  truth  in  itself  and  is  in  need  of 
no  other  proof. 

We  come  then  to  this  conclusion,  there  is  not  one  of 
the  Gospels  that  would  have  been  written,  there  would 
be  no  Gospel  at  all,  if  there  had  not  been  not  only  the 
death  but  the  resurrection.     Each  Gospel  means  that 


138  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

from  the  beginning,  and  could  not  possibly,  as  an 
organic  whole,  have  terminated  otherwise  than  in  that. 
What  does  that  mean  ?  It  means  this :  That,  however 
the  natural  earthly  life  of  Jesus,  as  contained  between 
His  birth  and  His  death,  was  an  integral  part,  and  a 
most  essential  integral  part  as  I  am  sure  we  have 
seen,  of  His  divine  work  upon  earth,  nevertheless  it 
did  not  contain  in  it  that  which  was  to  make  it  a 
Gospel  or  constitute  it  a  salvation.  That  remained 
to  be  added,  and  it  consisted  in  this:  the  final  fact 
of  the  decisive  and  complete  accomplishment  of  the 
work  which  our  Lord  had  been  given  to  do  upon  the 
earth  through  His  perfect  death  and  triumphant 
resurrection.  It  has  not  yet  fully  appeared,  as  it 
needs  to  appear,  why  this  was  necessary.  It  is  a 
turning  point  in  the  proper  conception  of  what  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is,  and  we  must  therefore 
devote  a  little  special  attention  to  the  point. 

There  is  a  constant  if  not  growing  disposition  to 
treat  what  we  call  the  revelation  of  humanity  in  Jesus 
Christ  as  only  humanity's  own  highest  self-revelation 
or  self-manifestation.  Jesus  is  the  wisest,  truest,  best 
of  men,  on  the  line  of  all  wisdom,  truth,  or  goodness 
among  men.  There  was  no  cataclysmic  break  be- 
tween the  spiritual  and  moral  attainment  of  other  men 
and  His.  He  was  only  the  acme,  the  highest  in  a 
continuous  series.  Then  it  follows  that  He  Himself 
is  infinitely  short  of  the  final  term  of  the  series,  because 
if  He  were  that  final  term  there  would  be  others  behind 
Him  in  unbroken  continuity  with  infinity.  If  we  de- 
cline to  recognize  a  cataclysm  between  all  others  and 


The  Saviour  from  Sin  139 

Jesus,  we  must  give  up  all  attempt  at  any  real  inter- 
pretation of  the  Gospels  or  of  the  New  Testament. 
Because  from  beginning  to  end  of  the  Scriptural  record 
there  is  consistently  observed  between  Jesus  and  all 
others  a  breach  of  continuity  in  the  fact  that  He  has 
absolutely  transcended  the  limit  of  actual  or  possible 
human  achievement  or  attainment  in  the  earthly  life. 
Jesus  Christ  is  Himself  the  author  and  completer  of 
that  ideal  standard  of  human  holiness,  according  to 
which  the  degree  of  approximation  is  infallibly  meas- 
ured by  the  sense  of  still  and  ever  separating  distance. 
If  it  is  intolerable  to  us  that  mortal  man  should  claim 
to  have  reached  not  only  a  participation  but  an  equality 
of  holiness  with  God  Himself,  whence  have  we  that 
appreciation  of  either  the  holiness  of  God,  or  what 
ought  to  be  the  proper  modesty  or  humility  of  man, 
but  through  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ?  What 
true  saint  is  there  of  the  New  Testament  or  of  Chris- 
tianity whose  sanctity  is  not  measured  by  just  this 
humility  ?  We  are  familiar  with  St.  John's :  If  we  say 
that  we  have  no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves  and  the  truth 
is  not  in  us;  and  St.  Paul's:  Not  that  I  have  already 
attained,  or  am  already  perfect.  But  what  other 
voice  has  ever  been  heard  in  Christianity  save  that  of 
only  humility  as  to  what  we  are,  and  faith  only  in  all 
we  ought  to  be  in  the  one  only  Holy  One?  Now  the 
self-same  spiritual  consciousness  which,  when  highest 
and  when  truest  to  itself,  is  thus  most  humble,  and 
humble  in  the  name  of  Jesus,  not  only  takes  no  offence 
at  the  claim  of  a  perfect  and  divine  holiness  on  the  part 
of  Jesus,  but  finds  it  inconceivable  to  think  otherwise 


140  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

of  Him  than  as  possessing  it.  It  would  only  weaken 
the  testimony  of  the  whole  New  Testament  in  the 
matter  to  appeal  to  particular  texts.  Any  one  ac- 
quainted with  the  fully  self-revealed  consciousness  of 
our  Lord  Himself,  or  on  the  other  hand  with  the  entire 
manifold  record  concerning  Him,  will  know  that  in 
neither  is  there  the  thought  of  any,  the  least,  trace  of 
sin  in  Him.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  this  human 
anomaly  of  the  perfection  of  humility  and  the  utter 
sense  of  personal  perfection  combined  in  one,  that  we 
do  not  sufficiently  question  it  or  look  as  deeply  as  we 
ought  into  its  explanation.  To  deny  it  is  to  give  up 
Christianity,  or  else  to  make  of  it  something  totally 
different  and  opposite  from  itself.  To  admit  it  is  to 
recognize  in  it  such  an  exception  to  and  transcendence 
of  human  experience  as  to  amount  to  the  spiritual 
cataclysm  of  which  we  spoke.  I  will  anticipate  here 
what  lies  some  way  before  us  to  make  the  following 
explanation.  The  coexistence  in  Jesus  of  a  perfect 
human  humility,  with  the  entire  absence  in  Him  of 
what  is  in  us  the  chief  ground  of  humility,  the  sin  that 
none  but  He  has  ever  surmounted  on  this  earth,  is 
explicable  in  this  way:  While  we  cannot  say  that  the 
holiness  of  Jesus  was  only  on  the  continuous  or  un- 
broken line  of  all  other  human  holiness,  —  because  in 
fact  it  transcended  or  passed  beyond  the  limits  of  that, 
—  yet  also  we  must  say  that  it  was  a  human  holiness, 
identical  with  ours  in  kind,  and  identical  with  it  in 
what  we  might  call  its  natural  history,  or  the  condi^ 
tions  and  law  of  its  origin  and  growth.  Now  all  human 
or  creature  holiness  comes  through  the  one  only  law 


The  Saviour  from  Siin  141 

of  the  submission  of  nature  and  self,  as  deficient  and 
insufficient  for  holiness,  to  the  one  only  sufiBcient  source 
and  cause  of  holiness.  Consequently,  the  holier  one 
becomes  the  more  one  passes  out  of  all  dependence 
upon  mere  nature  and  all  conceit  of  mere  self.  These 
are  left  behind  in  the  growing  experience  of  that  which, 
while  it  is  our  ever  growing  selves,  is  ever  more  and 
more  consciously  not  of  ourselves.  The  humility  in 
the  holiness  of  Jesus  is  the  humanness  in  it;  it  is  the 
memory  and  mark  of  its  earthly  history.  The  human 
spirit  that  becomes  more  selfless  and  humble  as  it 
grows  more  diAane  will  be  most  so  when  it  has  attained 
its  divine  perfection.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  of 
the  many  anomalies  of  Christian  character  is  that  the 
more  righteous  it  becomes  the  less  self-righteous  it 
becomes ;  the  greater  it  grows  the  more  modest  it  grows. 
In  what  I  have  called  the  cataclysmic  fact  of  our 
Lord's  humanly  acquired  and  yet  perfectly  acquired 
holiness,  we  have  already  all  the  spiritual  side  of  the 
mighty  truth  of  the  Resurrection.  Humanity  was 
already  in  Him  dead  to  sin  and  alive  to  God.  There 
was  more,  but  there  was  nothing  greater,  to  follow. 
The  sinlessness,  or  more  properly  the  holiness,  of 
Jesus  was  every  whit  as  great  a  miracle,  —  if  we 
please  to  call  it  so,  —  it  just  as  much  transcended 
ordinary  —  but  for  Him,  universal  —  human  experi- 
ence, as  His  resurrection  from  the  dead  was  or 
did.  Indeed,  they  were  one  and  the  same  act,  though 
separable  and  separated  parts  of  it.  The  Conqueror 
of  sin  was  the  Conqueror  of  death. 


xn 

SIN  AND  ITS  TREATMENT 

We  will  assume  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  what  sin 
means,  to  begin  with.  If  any  more  exact  definition  is 
needed,  it  will  come  out  of  itself  in  the  discussion.  If 
sin  is  not  itself  a  definite  and  definable  thing,  at  least 
its  contrary  or  contradictory,  holiness,  is  so;  it  may 
therefore  be  defined  by  its  opposite.  There  is  one  other 
point  upon  which  I  desire  to  be  understood  at  the  start. 
In  studying  the  problem  of  sin  and  its  treatment,  we 
shall  probably  find  ourselves  treading  in  the  footsteps 
of  New  Testament  and  traditional  thought  on  that 
subject.  Immediately  we  shall  find  ourselves  using 
the  language  of  St.  Paul,  the  first  Christian  thinker  and 
interpreter  of  the  matter  in  hand.  If  so,  it  will  be  only 
because  we  cannot  help  it.  I  think  that  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  sin  and  its  treatment  was  developed  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  primarily  by  St.  Paul,  on  the  only 
possible  line  and  in  the  only  possible  way.  I  find 
myself,  therefore,  unable  to  depart  from  it,  but  let  it  be 
understood  that  we  are  following  it  not  upon  the  ground 
of  its  authority,  but  from  the  necessity  of  its  truth. 
Let  the  discussion  itself  show  whether  that  necessity 
really  exists. 

Sin  is  of  all  things  in  the  world  a  personal  matter. 
142 


Sin  and  its  Treatment  143 

It  is  the  thing  in  the  world  the  most  independent  of 
God  Himself,  and  it  is  independent  of  Him  to  the  point 
of  contradiction.  Sin,  in  order  to  be  sin,  must  be  so, 
in  the  language  of  scholasticism,  not  only  in  its  matter 
but  in  its  form.  We  might  say  that  sin  is  a  violation 
of  the  spirit  of  holiness,  or  of  the  law  of  righteousness. 
But  there  may  be  a  material  violation  of  these  which 
is  not  a  formal  violation  of  them,  and  which  therefore 
is  not  sin.  The  material  definition  of  sin  would  be  the 
transgression  of  the  law;  the  formal  definition  is  that 
it  is  the  personal,  the  conscious  and  voluntary,  trans- 
gression of  the  law.  An  animal  or  an  infant  or  an 
idiot  might  perform  an  act  materially  identical  with 
what  would  be  in  a  responsible  person  the  worst  of 
crimes.  But  there  would  be  no  guilt  or  sin  because 
that  is  lacking  which  not  only  defines  but  constitutes 
these,  viz. :  consciousness  and  purpose  or  choice.  This 
is  what  St.  Paul  means  when  he  says  that  sin  was 
always  in  the  world,  even  prior  to  the  law;  but  that  sin 
is  not  imputed  where  or  when  there  is  no  law.  By  law 
we  mean  that  which  in  any  way  expresses  or  conveys 
to  our  consciousness  or  our  knowledge  the  distinction 
and  difference  between  what  we  ought  and  what  we 
ought  not.  Until  that  distinction  is  bom  in  us  there 
can  be  no  actual  or  real  sin.  The  matter  of  it  may 
and  will  be  present,  but  it  is  not  imputed,  it  cannot  be 
by  ourselves  and  it  is  not  by  God,  accounted  or  regarded 
as  sin,  because  the  essential  condition  and  constituent 
of  sin  is  not  yet  there.  When  the  law,  in  any  form  or 
manner,  has  once  expressed  and  actually  conveyed  to 
us  the  opposition  of  ought  and  ought  not,  the  differen- 


144  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

tiation  of  sin  and  holiness  has  begun.  So  by  the  law- 
is  the  knowledge  of  sin;  but  where  is  the  knowledge  of 
sin  there  is  equally  the  knowledge  of  holiness,  for  each 
can  be  known  only  through  its  opposite. 

Sin  and  holiness  as  opposites  are  a  matter  of  personal 
attitude  toward  one  and  the  same  thing.  Let  us  recall 
the  profound  saying  of  Aristotle,  that  opposite  habits, 
virtues  and  vices,  spring  and  grow  out  of  opposite 
attitudes  or  responses  to  the  same  things  —  what  we 
might  call  opposite  reactions  upon  the  same  stimuli. 
Precisely  what,  yielded  to  and  overcome  by,  creates 
in  us  a  vice,  resisted  and  overcome  develops  in  us  the 
opposite  virtue.  So  far  as  what  we  are  or  become 
personally  may  be  said  to  be  due  to  external  causes, 
we  might  say  truly  that  vice  and  virtue,  sin  and  holiness, 
proceed  from  identically  the  same  causes.  That  is  so 
because  what  we  are  personally  cannot  properly  be 
said  to  proceed  from  causes  without  ourselves;  they 
must  proceed  from  ourselves.  Different  personalities 
are  not  produced  by  different  circumstances  or  con- 
ditions, but  by  different  attitudes  and  actions  under 
identical  conditions.  What  is  necessary  to  make  a 
sinner  is  equally  necessary  to  make  a  saint,  and  so 
each  may  be  said  to  have  been  produced  by  the  same 
causes. 

We  may  pause  to  remark  that  there  is  nothing  in 
what  has  been  just  said  that  contradicts  the  patent  fact 
that  men  are  actually  for  the  most  part  what  their 
times  and  circumstances  make  them.  No  one  can 
deny  that  taken  in  the  mass  or  by  the  average  men  for 
the  most  part  are  overcome  by,  rather  than  overcome, 


Sin  and  its  Treatment  145 

their  outward  conditions.  But  under  all  circumstances 
there  are  men  who  are  relatively  different  in  similar 
situations.  And  so  far  as  this  difference  is  at  all  that 
of  good  or  bad,  virtuous  or  vicious,  holy  or  sinful,  it  is 
wholly  due,  not  to  different  conditions,  but  to  different 
attitudes  toward  the  same  conditions. 

Sin  then  being,  like  holiness,  so  essentially  and  dis- 
tinctively a  matter  of  personal  attitude  that  its  very 
formal  definition  turns  upon  that  fact,  it  follows  that 
as  it  can  originate  only  through  ourselves,  so  can  it  be 
put  away  or  separated  from  us  only  through  ourselves. 
None  but  we  can,  in  the  real  sense,  put  away  our  sin, 
because  who  but  we  can  assume  and  maintain  an 
attitude  which  shall  be  our  own  ?  Consequently,  all 
talk  in  the  Gospels  or  in  the  New  Testament  upon  the 
subject  of  the  remission  of  sin  is  based  upon  a  condi- 
tion in  ourselves  which  is  a  sine  qua  non.  This  con- 
dition we  have  now  to  analyze  and  investigate.  And 
because  our  English  expression  for  it,  repentance, 
scarcely  covers  the  ground,  not  merely  of  the  thing, 
but  even  of  our  proposed  discussion,  let  us  for  the  time 
do  what  some  have  even  wished  that  our  original  trans- 
lators had  done  permanently,  anglicized  the  Greek 
term.  The  personal  spiritual  attitude  toward  sin  or 
holiness,  because  an  attitude  toward  one  is  a  correspond- 
ing attitude  toward  the  other,  which  alike  John  the 
Baptist  and  our  Lord  proclaimed  as  the  condition  of 
the  remission  of  sin,  is  expressed  in  the  Greek  by  the 
word  metanoia.  John  the  Baptist  came  preaching  the 
baptism  of  metanoia,  or  repentance,  unto  the  remission 
of  sins.     We  have  seen  how  the  ministry  of  John  is 


146  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

carefully  expressed  in  these  exact  terms  by  every  one 
of  the  Evangelists.  We  have  seen  how  our  Lord  at  the 
close,  according  to  St.  Luke,  states  what  is  to  be 
preached  in  His  name  precisely  in  these  terms.  We 
have  seen  how,  as  reported  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
both  the  Jerusalem  apostles  and  St.  Paul  did  make 
just  those  words  the  burden  of  their  preaching.  We 
have  seen  how  St.  John  in  his  first  epistle  states  the 
end  of  our  Lord's  coming  to  be  the  taking  or  the  put- 
ting away  of  sin.  Finally,  it  will  require  a  separate 
special  exposition  to  see  fully  how  the  entire  doctrinal 
system  of  St.  Paul  on  the  subject  of  what  is,  inade- 
quately, termed  justification  is  based  upon  the  truth 
of  the  remission  of  sin  through  Jesus  Christ  upon  tlie 
necessary  condition  of  a  true  repentance.  It  will 
repay  us,  therefore,  to  take  the  three  or  four  words  of 
the  Baptist  as  a  text,  and  I  think  we  shall  find  in  this 
case  a  careful  study  of  the  words  a  great  help  to  the 
discovery  of  the  thing  which  is  the  matter  of  concern. 

It  is  rather  strange  that  in  the  brief  phrase  we  are 
about  to  discuss  there  is  more  or  less  of  doubt  or  am- 
biguity in  almost  every  word.  The  inadequacy  of  the 
term  repentance  we  have  alluded  to.  Between  the 
Authorized  and  the  Revised  Versions  the  question  is 
raised  whether  it  is  forgiveness  or  remission  of  sin  that 
is  the  gift  of  the  Gospel.  There  is  reason  I  think  in 
the  substitution,  if  only  in  the  fact  that  the  second  term 
is  larger  and  more  inclusive.  Again,  the  two  versions 
raise  the  question  whether  it  is  repentance  for  or  re- 
pentance unto  remission  or  forgiveness.  The  only 
word  in  the  phrase  that  is  unambiguous  is  the  indu- 


Sin  and  its  Treatment  147 

bitable  one  sins.  And  yet  a  large  part  of  the  light  to 
be  conveyed  to  us  by  our  text  comes  through  these 
very  ambiguities. 

The  issues  of  life  and  destiny  turn  upon  our  personal 
attitude  to  the  two  things  we  term  respectively  sin  and 
holiness.  The  totality  of  one's  attitude  toward  each 
of  these  could  be  expressed  adequately  by  only  a  very 
comprehensive  term,  such  as  it  would  be  impossible  to 
find.  The  thing  is  too  large  to  be  contained  m  a  single 
word.  It  would  be  of  advantage  to  adopt  in  each  case 
a  word  of  another  language  into  which  as  a  symbol  we 
might  crowd  all  the  meaning  of  the  thing  to  be  expressed 
by  it  Such  a  suitable  word  would  be  metanoia.  But, 
to  avoid  the  appearance  of  pedantry,  let  us  return  to 
our  own  language,  and  try  to  stretch  to  something  like 
adequacy  two  terms  which  have  to  carry  in  them  a 
very  large  part  of  the  truth  of  the  Gospel.  The  two 
words  are  repentance  and  faith.  Let  us  by  repentance 
understand  the  totality  of  what  ought  to  be  one's  atti- 
tude toward  that  thing  in  human  experience  which  we 
call  sin.  And  by  faith  let  us  understand  the  corre- 
sponding attitude  towards  holiness.  It  is,  as  we  have 
so  often  said,  the  issue  between  these  two  attitudes  that 
constitutes  the  turning-point  of  human  life,  that  im- 
ports into  it  the  supreme  interest  and  concern  of  per- 
sonal probation,  and  that  determines  not  only  the  fact 
but  the  final  quality  and  fate  of  personality.  Holiness 
and  sin  bear  the  same  relation  to  spiritual  life  and 
death  that  health  and  sickness  do  to  physical  life  and 
death.  The  fact  that  the  spiritual  issue  is  made  to 
depend  upon  attitudes  of  our  own,  or  of  ourselves,  has 


148  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

its  ground  in  the  deeper  fact  that  spiritual  Hfe  is  essen- 
tially the  act  or  activity  of  personality;  it  is  something 
which  we  must  ourselves  be  and  do.  We  live  and 
become  ourselves  in  the  act  or  activity  of  choosing  and 
determining  what  and  of  what  sort  we  shall  be.  To 
be  of  the  universal  and  eternal  divine  spirit  is  holiness ; 
not  to  be  so,  or  to  be  not  so,  is  sin.  The  possibility  of 
such  a  choice  is  the  condition  of  at  least  human  per- 
sonality, and  of  all  distinctions  of  personal  quality  or 
character.  Without  it  there  could  be  no  good  or  bad, 
right  or  wrong,  holiness  or  sin. 

^Vhat  then  ought  to  be  one's  total  aspect  or  attitude 
toward  sin  ?  Let  us  recall  the  fact  that  only  holiness, 
and  not  sin,  is  susceptible  of  positive  definition.  The 
aspect  or  attitude  toward  holiness  is  necessarily  that 
toward  the  universally  and  eternally  actual  spirit  and 
law  in  which  God  manifests  Himself  to  us.  The  atti- 
tude toward  holiness  is  the  attitude  toward  God;  it  is 
faith.  Our  only  possible  directions  of  self-determina- 
tion are  Godward  and  sin  ward.  The  choice  between 
them  is  the  issue  of  what  we  shall  be,  with  all  its  con- 
sequences. I  say  its  consequences,  because  there  are 
no  consequences  for  us  here  or  hereafter,  except  such 
as  not  merely  flow  from  but  actually  consist  in  what 
we  ourselves  are.  What  then  ought  to  be  the  totality 
of  our  attitude  toward  sin  ?  It  might  perhaps  be  best 
expressed  in  the  one  word  negation.  Repentance  is 
the  personal  negation  of  sin;  it  is  the  entire  opposition 
of  our  entire  selves  to  sin.  In  the  first  place,  what  is 
our  entire  selves  ?  The  attitude  required  is  not  one 
of  the  mind  only;  it  must  equally  be  one  of  the  heart 


Sin  and  its  Treatment  149 

and  of  the  feelings  or  affections.  Nor  is  that  enough; 
it  must  be  of  the  will,  and  of  the  effectual  will.  And 
so  not  merely  all  the  rest,  but  it  must  be  of  the  whole 
activity  and  actuality  of  the  man.  Repentance  must 
be  the  controlling  and  determining  fact  and  factor  of 
the  life.  Such  is  the  metanoia,  the  new  mind,  new 
heart,  new  will,  new  life,  and  new  blessedness  of  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  the  putting  and  the  passing 
away  of  old  things,  the  coming  about  and  the  putting 
on  of  new  things  with  us.  For  there  is  no  repentance 
that  is  not  the  mere  reverse  of  faith.  Faith  may  be 
defined  as  the  personal  affirmation  of  God  or  of  holi- 
ness. It  is  the  entire  setting  of  the  entire  man  God- 
ward  or  holiness-ward.  Faith  when  it  is  made  perfect 
must  possess  and  determine  the  entire  mind  and  heart 
and  will  and  life,  and  must  make  the  man  what  its 
object  is. 

We  must  analyze  a  little  further  what  we  mean  by 
saying  that  repentance  must  be  not  only  an  act  of  the 
entire  man  but  an  entire  act  of  the  man.  An  act,  in 
order  to  be  real  and  effective,  must  fulfil  two  conditions. 
In  the  first  place,  it  must  not  only  be  directed  to  a 
definite  and  single  end,  but  it  must  from  the  very  be- 
ginning mean  and  intend  that  end.  In  the  second 
place,  there  is  no  real  meaning  in  an  act  which  only 
means  and  does  not  attain,  or  is  not  certain  at  some 
time  to  attain,  its  end.  What  must  be  the  single  and 
the  definite  end  of  repentance  ?  Our  passage  gives 
the  only  possible  answer.  It  is  the  putting  away  of 
sin.  Whose  putting  away .''  Who  but  we  can  put  away 
our  sin  through  repentance  ?    I  am  the  furthest  in  the 


150  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

world  from  saying  that  we  are  sufficient  of  ourselves 
to  put  away  our  sin.  But  I  am  equally  certain  of  the 
fact  that  it  is  only  we  ourselves  that  can  put  it  away. 
Let  us  think  of  it  again.  My  sin,  like  my  holiness,  is 
how  I  myself  am  disposed,  what  my  own  attitude  is, 
toward  the  two  possible  directions  of  human  life  and 
activity.  Will  I  follow  my  reason,  my  conscience,  the 
spirit  of  holiness,  the  law  of  righteousness,  or  will  I  be 
turned  aside  from  these  by  my  passions,  the  innumer- 
able opportunities  of  inordinate  desire,  and  the  thou- 
sand external  objects  that  attract  and  tempt  them.'' 
Just  this  is  my  probation,  the  condition  and  oppor- 
tunity of  my  self-determination;  and  the  answer  de- 
pends upon  acts  that  I  myself  perform,  habits  that  I 
form,  and  the  character  which  I  thus  make  for  myself. 
In  other  words,  everything  turns  upon  the  settled  and 
fixed  disposition  or  attitude  which  I  give  myself  to- 
ward the  complex  conditions  which,  according  to  it, 
make  life  good  or  bad.  The  conditions  are  indeed 
complex,  but  the  decision  is  a  single  and  a  simple  one 
And  it  cannot  be  a  half-way  or  partial  one,  and  at  the 
same  time  be  sincere  and  real.  The  preposition  that 
connects  repentance  and  remission  in  our  text  is  a  very 
important  part  of  it,  —  and  that,  whether  we  translate 
it  for  or  unto.  In  the  one  case  it  means  intention  or 
purpose,  and  in  the  other  it  imports  actual  accomplish- 
ment or  result.  Repentance  means  nothing  if  it  does 
not  intend  the  whole  of  holiness,  the  complete  putting 
away  of  sin;  and  it  is  ineffectual,  it  comes  to  nothing, 
if  it  is  never  to  attain  or  accomplish  that  end.  The 
preposition  in  question  is  interesting  as  that  of  the  end 


Sin  and  its  Treatment  151 

or  the  jBnal  cause.  In  a  real  action  the  essential  and 
vital  thing  is  the  end,  what  is  intended  at  first  and  what 
is  accomplished  at  last.  Judged  by  this  test,  what  are 
most  of  our  repentances  ?  A  little  sense  of  sin,  a  little 
self-condemnation  and  sorrow,  a  little  desire  to  be  free 
from  it,  a  little  purpose  to  do  something  to  that  end. 
If  we  should  honestly  set  ourselves  to  see  just  how 
much  of  any  of  these  there  is  actually  in  it,  it  might  well 
surprise  and  shock  ourselves.  Now,  if  Jesus  Christ 
teaches  anything,  and  stands  for  anything,  it  is  a  real 
and  complete  repentance  based  upon  a  real  and  com- 
plete faith,  a  thoroughgoing  and  effectual  attitude 
toward  sin  and  toward  holiness,  an  attitude  which  shall 
be  so  whole  an  activity  of  the  whole  man  that  it  will 
make  a  complete  new  man  of  him.  It  is  this  and  this 
alone  which  makes  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  accord- 
ing to  St.  Paul,  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to 
every  one  that  believeth.  It  is  the  power  of  a  perfect 
holiness,  a  perfect  righteousness,  and  a  perfect  life. 

Here  comes  in  the  instructive  and  the  important 
ambiguity  of  the  expression  we  have  been  discussing. 
Is  it  only  forgiveness  or  is  it  an  actual  and  real  putting 
away  from  us  of  sin  ?  Is  it  only  for  or  is  it  actually 
unto  the  full  and  perfect  end  of  repentance  ?  The  real 
and  effectual  treatment  of  sin  is  by  its  very  nature  a 
joint  act  or  activity  of  God  and  man.  Only  man  can 
perform  it,  but  man  can  perform  it  only  through  the 
Eternal  Spirit  which  is  God.  When  it  is  accomplished, 
it  is  the  whole  man  who  must  have  accomplished  it. 
His  whole  mind  and  heart  and  will  and  activity  must 
have  gone  into  the  accomplishment  of  it;  it  must  have 


152  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

been  a  complete  attitude  on  his  part  toward  sin  and 
toward  holiness,  a  perfect  repentance  and  a  perfect 
faith.  But  equally  God  must  have  been  in  it,  and 
must  have  been  the  doer  of  it.  The  whole  Spirit  of 
God  must  have  imparted  itself  to  him,  the  whole  Word 
or  Truth  or  Law  of  God  must  have  fulfilled  itself  in  him. 
Now,  according  as  we  take  the  end  or  final  cause  of 
repentance  as  purpose  in  the  beginning,  or  throughout 
the  process,  or  as  attainment  or  accomplishment  in  the 
final  result,  we  shall  give  different  senses  to  the  divine 
human  act  of  remission;  or  rather  we  shall  be  looking 
at  it  from  different  points  of  view.  If  I  am  looking  at 
the  entire  act  of  the  putting  away  of  my  sin  in  Jesus 
Christ  —  both  God's  and  mine  —  I  mean  the  real 
putting  away,  by  the  actual  putting  off  on  my  part  of 
sin  and  the  putting  on  of  holiness.  I  recognize,  of 
course,  that  this  is  a  process  of  gradual  transformation, 
an  indefinite  —  not  to  say  infinite  —  process  of  which 
the  divine  holiness  is  only  the  limit.  But  still  I  see  it 
as  a  whole,  and  the  whole  can  only  mean  an  actual 
participation  in  the  holiness,  the  righteousness,  the 
life  of  God  Himself.  Meantime,  just  because  the 
whole  process  means  so  much,  there  arises  another 
tremendous  question  of  our  status  with  God  and  with 
ourselves  at  its  beginning  or  throughout  its  course. 
Even  a  St.  Paul  or  a  St.  John  is  infinitely  remote  from 
feeling  himself  to  have  attained,  or  to  be  without  sin. 
What  is  the  position  of  us  all,  who  the  more  we  mean 
and  intend  holiness  or  righteousness,  only  the  more 
feel  that  we  infinitely  have  not  attained  and  do  not 
possess  it?    Here  comes  in  the  other  sense  of  remis- 


Sin  and  its  Treatment  153 

sion  —  not  as  yet  the  complete  impartation,  but  already 
the  perfect  imputation  to  us  of  the  whole  holiness, 
righteousness,  and  life  of  God  as  realized  for  us  in 
Jesus  Christ.  The  moment  a  human  life  has  really 
made  Jesus  Christ  its  end,  although  that  end  be  as  yet 
only  the  end  of  purpose,  and  infinitely  not  yet  the  end 
of  attainment,  that  moment  God  imputes  to  that  life 
what  it  means  and  intends  as  though  it  had  already 
accomplished  it.  St.  Paul  perfectly  caught  the  prin- 
ciple, and  perfectly  expressed  it  in  the  doctrine  which 
is  the  root  of  his  system:  Faith  is  imputed  to  us  for 
righteousness;  it  is  reckoned  or  accounted  as  being 
righteousness. 

The  common  sense  or  the  philosophy  of  it  is  not  far 
to  find.  It  is  a  principle  upon  which  even  we  ourselves 
act  in  our  imperfect  measure.  Let  us  perfectly  know 
that  one  fully  means  a  certain  act  or  a  certain  part 
towards  us,  and  that  fact  establishes  a  status  between 
us  as  complete  as  though  he  had  already  fulfilled  it. 
Of  course,  as  we  shall  abundantly  see,  there  is  a  great 
deal  more  ground  for  a  basis  between  God  and  our- 
selves upon  the  mutual  understanding  of  a  repentance 
on  our  part  which  means  the  putting  off  of  sin  and  a 
faith  which  means  the  putting  on  of  holiness,  but  the 
above  illustration  will  suggest  the  true  fact  that  the 
divine  method  in  our  spiritual  treatment  can  be  relied 
upon  for  both  common  sense  and  philosophy  —  that 
is  to  say,  to  be  the  most  perfectly  natural  and  the  most 
perfectly  rational  one. 


XIII 

THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  JESUS 

We  have  seen  how  the  Gospels  terminate  logically 
and  naturally  in  the  commission.  That  repentance  and 
remission  of  sins  should  be  preached  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  unto  all  the  nations.  We  have  seen  how 
precisely  so  it  was  preached,  and  that  that  from  the 
beginning  was  the  Gospel.  It  is  most  exactly  ex- 
pressed by  St.  Peter  in  the  words,  In  none  other  is 
there  salvation;  for  neither  is  there  any  other  name 
under  heaven,  that  is  given  among  men,  wherein  we 
must  be  saved.  We  cannot  ourselves  explain  this  plain 
statement  of  the  Gospel  nor  enter  into  the  Christian  or 
Catholic  understanding  of  it  except  on  the  assumption 
that  not  only  is  salvation  from  sin  given  in  Jesus  Christ, 
but  that  salvation  from  sin  was  wrought  or  accom- 
plished by  Jesus  Christ.  The  taking  away  or  putting 
away  or  abolishing  of  sin  was  accomplished  by  an  act 
on  His  part,  and  it  was  accomplished  first  in  His  own 
person.  He  Himself  was  sinless,  not  by  any  mere  fact 
of  His  own  nature  —  differencing  it  from  ours  —  but 
by  an  act  of  Himself  in  our  nature,  which  we  too  were 
to  enter  into  and  make  our  own  and  so  perform  for 
ourselves  in  and  with  Him.  He  by  Himself  made 
purgation  of  our  sins.     This  was  an  act,  the  act,  of  His 

154 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  155 

whole  life,  but  an  act  finished  or  consummated  in  His 
death.  He  was  manifested  to  put  away  sin  by  the 
sacrifice  of  Himself.  Which  means  that  He  put  away 
the  sin  of  the  world  by  primarily  putting  away  sin  from 
Himself.  He  destroyed  it,  to  begin  with,  by  His  own 
death  to  it,  or  by  putting  it  to  death  in  its  encounter 
with  Himself.  He  was  manifested  to  take  away  sin. 
And  this  He  does  in  two  acts.  The  first  is  expressed 
in  these  words.  And  in  Him  there  is  no  sin ;  it  has  been 
condemned  and  abolished  in  His  own  person.  The 
second  is,  WTiosoever  abideth  in  Him  sinneth  not;  it  is 
abolished  in  whosoever  sincerely  enters  into  Him  by 
entering  into  His  death  to  sin  and  making  it  his  own. 
In  view  of  this  relation  of  the  death  or  sacrifice  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  ourselves,  there  ought  to  be  no  hesitation 
from  any  Christian  point  of  view  about  such  words  as 
the  following:  There  is  one  God;  one  mediator  also 
between  God  and  man,  Himself  man,  Christ  Jesus, 
who  gave  Himself  a  ransom  for  all. 

The  point  is  that  Jesus  Christ  did  by  Himself  destroy 
sin.  And  now  the  question  is,  by  what  act  or  by  what 
process  did  He  do  so  ?  This  involves  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  the  personal  relation  of  our  Lord  Himself  to  the 
universal  human  fact  of  sin.  Let  it  be  understood 
that  in  our  present  discussion  we  are  not  to  take  into 
account  any  theory  of  a  higher  than  human  personality 
of  Jesus.  He  does  not  do  so  in  His  own  discussions. 
In  them  all  He  is  Son  of  man,  and  He  takes  His  stand 
and  rests  His  claims  not  upon  any  difference  from  men, 
but  upon  what  He  is  as  man.  But  Jesus  Christ  will 
forever  stand  for  spiritual  manhood,  for  man  in  the 


156  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

perfection  of  his  God  ward  relation.  He  embodies  in 
His  person  the  truth  of  the  divine  fatherhood  reahzed 
upon  earth  by  the  attainment  or  accomphshment  of 
human  sonship.  For  our  sonship  to  God  is  not  a 
thing  that  simply  is.  We  have  to  acquire  the  divine 
nature  that  constitutes  or  makes  us  children  of  God. 
And  that  nature  is  holiness.  Holiness  is  in  itself  what 
God  is;  and  in  us  it  is  participation  in  what  God  is. 
It  is  to  share  His  spirit,  and  so  His  character  and  His 
life.  Jesus  Christ  is  to  us  not  only  the  fact  but  the  way 
of  holiness  —  The  Way,  as  well  as  The  Truth  and  The 
Life.  We  have  in  Him  the  act  as  well  as  the  fact  of 
holiness.  His  holiness,  if  it  was  to  be  ours,  had  to  be 
made  like  ours  under  the  experiences  of  human  life 
upon  earth.  It  behooved  God,  in  bringing  many  sons 
unto  glory,  to  make  the  author  of  their  salvation  per- 
fect through  sufferings.  It  was  necessary  that  He 
should  taste  death  for  every  man.  Indeed,  if  Jesus 
were  man  at  all,  there  is  but  one  holiness  and  one  way 
of  holiness  for  man.  Just  as  much  as  sin  for  man  is 
the  yielding  of  his  spirit  to  his  flesh,  so  only  is  his  holi- 
ness to  be  acquired  through  the  subduing  of  his  flesh 
by  his  spirit.  It  is  the  very  condition  and  nature  of 
the  human  spirit  that  it  can  come  about  only  through 
itself.  And  it  can  come  about  through  itself  only  by 
an  act  of  original,  self-determined,  and  permanent, 
choice.  If  it  is  to  be  good  or  bad,  right  or  wrong,  holy 
or  sinful,  it  must  go  through  an  act  of  free  choice  be- 
tween these  opposites,  and  its  goodness  or  badness,  its 
holiness  or  its  sin,  will  be  simply  a  name  for  the  per- 
manent and  eternal  choice  it  has  made.     This  is  what 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  157 

we  mean  by  formal  freedom,  in  distinction  from  the 
real  freedom  which  we  acquire  in  the  end  through  the 
permanent  choice  and  possession  of  holiness.  But 
there  can  be  no  real  freedom  in  the  end  if  there  was  no 
formal  freedom  at  the  beginning.  A  holiness  or  free- 
dom not  wrought  out  through  the  pangs  and  travail 
of  our  own  free  choice  and  self-determination  is  not 
our  own,  and  is  therefore,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned, 
no  holiness  or  freedom  at  all.  We  cannot,  therefore, 
begin  to  discuss  the  human  holiness  of  Jesus  at  all,  if 
we  are  not  to  ascribe  to  Him  the  formal  freedom  which 
is  the  condition  and  the  essence  of  our  own  humanity. 
But  we  need  not  discuss  that  question  in  a  study  of 
the  New  Testament.  That,  from  beginning  to  end, 
is  based  upon  the  mighty  issue  for  humanity,  decided 
once  for  all  in  His  person  as  its  new  head  and  repre- 
sentative. As  humanity  had  fallen  in  Adam,  and  by 
his  act  or  its  own  act  in  him,  so  humanity  threw  off  its 
sin  and  death  in  Christ,  and  by  His  act  or  by  its  own 
act  in  His  person.  We  need  not  concern  ourselves,  if 
we  are  disposed  to  do  so,  about  the  literal  or  historical 
truth  of  Adam.  If  man  has  sinned  or  is  sinful,  it  can 
be  only  through  himself  that  he  has  done  or  become  so. 
There  can  be  no  sin  except  through  personal  responsi- 
bility. Now,  just  let  us  take  Adam  as  standing  for 
that  self  or  selfhood  of  humanity,  or  of  every  man, 
through  which  it  has  become  and  is  sinful  before  God, 
as  indeed  it  has  and  is.  The  truth  then  simply  amounts 
to  this,  that  as  man  of  or  in  himself  (his  natural  estate, 
or  Adam)  is  universally  subject  to  sin  and  death,  so  in 
Christ  has  He  been  redeemed  and  raised,  or  has  raised 


158  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

himself,  out  of  that  natural  condition  of  subjection  to 
sin  and  death.  The  question  is  first,  as  we  have  stated 
it,  how  did  Jesus  Christ  in  Himself,  or  humanity  in  His 
person,  accomplish  that  act?  The  answer  which  we 
will  first  give  and  then  amplify  is :  that  He  accomplished 
it  humanly  through  a  perfect  human  attitude  toward 
sin  and  toward  holiness,  sustained  throughout  His  life 
and  consummated  in  His  death.  But  for  the  certainty 
of  being  misunderstood  —  against  which  I  shall  do 
my  best  to  guard  this  discussion  —  I  should  say  that 
Jesus  Christ,  or  humanity  in  Him,  accomplished  salva- 
tion or  holiness  through  a  lifelong  and  death-com- 
pleted act  of  perfect  repentance  and  perfect  faith.  By 
a  perfect  repentance  —  in  the  larger  sense  in  which  we 
are  now  using  it  —  I  mean  an  attitude  toward  sin  that 
is  unto  the  putting  away  of  it.  And  by  a  perfect  faith 
I  mean  an  attitude  that  is  unto,  that  actually  attains, 
the  complete  putting  on  of  holiness.  Such  a  repent- 
ance is  necessarily  unto  death,  —  either  the  death  of 
sin  in  us  or  the  death  of  ourselves  to  sin,  or  probably 
both.  Such  a  faith  is  necessarily  unto  life,  unto  the 
limit  of  the  completeness  of  the  life  of  God  in  us  and  of 
our  life  in  God.  In  other  words,  Jesus  Christ  accom- 
plished that  perfect  human  act  which  is  in  itself  the 
only  perfect  human  salvation,  the  perfect  putting  away 
of  sin  by  the  perfect  putting  on  of  holiness. 

The  more  we  consider  the  matter  the  more  shall  we 
be  convinced,  from  the  spiritual  side  of  it,  that  for  us 
there  is  no  real  and  complete  salvation  except  through 
a  real  death  and  resurrection.  A  negation  of  sin  unto 
the  extinction  of  it,  an  affirmation  of  holiness  unto  the 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  159 

realization  of  it  —  that  is  what  our  salvation  means, 
and  that  is  precisely  what  Jesus  Christ  accomplished. 
The  death  that  He  died,  He  died  unto  sin  once  —  or 
once  for  all;  because  it  was  a  complete  and  perfect 
death:  the  life  that  He  liveth,  He  liveth  unto  God. 
But  still  the  question  remains:  Why  is  the  putting  to 
death  of  sin  in  us  likewise  a  death  of  ourselves  unto 
sin .''  Especially  why  was  it  necessary  that  our  sinless 
Lord  should  die  to  sin  ?  The  answer  is  that  He  was 
only  humanly  sinless  in  that  He  humanly  died  to  sin. 
His  lifelong  death  to  sin  created  and  constituted  His 
sinlessness,  —  or  rather  His  holiness ;  because  there  is 
no  negative  sinlessness  that  is  not  an  act  of  positive 
holiness.  The  completer  answer  to  this  question, 
however,  will  require  a  going  over  of  the  details  of  what 
we  may  call  the  formation  or  evolution  of  the  human 
sinlessness  of  Jesus. 

Our  Lord,  because  He  was  Son  of  man,  and  because 
He  could  not  be  so  and  be  devoid  of  what  is  the  essen- 
tial constitution  of  humanity,  entered  upon  life  con- 
fronted by  the  one  issue  that  meets  us  all  and  makes  us 
all  whatsoever  we  are.  The  one  issue  was  that  of  sin  or 
holiness.  He  could  only  be  sinful  by  yielding  to  any 
of  the  numerous  and  ever-present  occasions,  oppor- 
tunities, and  solicitations  of  sin  that  come  to  us  from 
without.  Equally  He  could  be  holy  only  through  re- 
sisting and  denying  these  same  universal  and  natural 
temptations.  As  we  have  said,  the  selfsame  conditions 
or  so-called  causes  that  produce  sin  are  necessary  to  the 
formation  of  holiness.  We  cannot  say  that  tempta- 
tion did  not  play  a  part,  and  a  part  that  was  as  neces- 


160  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

sary  as  it  was  tremendous,  in  the  spiritual  development 
of  the  life  and  character  of  Jesus  Christ.  Let  us  guard 
ourselves  from  offence  in  every  direction  by  agreeing 
upon  the  ancient  formula :  We  do  not  say  that  our  Lord 
as  man  could  not  have  sinned  if  He  willed,  but  God 
forbid  that  He  should  have  willed.  All  that  we  need 
to  maintain  is  that  our  Lord  in  fact  did  not  sin,  not 
from  necessity  of  His  nature,  but  in  the  exercise  of  His 
human  will;  and  that  that  exercise  consisted  not  only 
in  the  resistance  and  denial  of  temptations  from  with- 
out that  were  real  temptations,  but  in  something  within 
that  was  self-denial,  and  that  in  its  extremest  forms 
was  self-sacrifice.  It  is  not  sin  that  we  are  either  sub- 
ject to  temptation  from  without  or  liable  to  temptation 
from  within.  It  is  not  only  a  fact,  but  the  most  essen- 
tial fact,  of  our  human  constitution.  It  constitutes  the 
issue  which  makes  us  persons,  which  imparts  a  moral 
quality  to  our  acts  and  lives,  and  which  in  enabling  us 
to  be  of  ourselves  enables  us  also  to  be  of  God.  That 
the  essential  point  in  our  Lord's  early  or  pre-public 
life  was,  how  He  had  used  His  human  freedom,  or  what 
sort  of  man  He  was,  is  proved,  as  we  saw,  by  the  very 
form  of  the  divine  approbation  of  it  at  the  close:  This 
is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased.  Com- 
mendation such  as  that,  or  such  an  expression  of  divine 
pleasure,  is  applicable  only  to  human  or  creature 
action,  disposition,  or  character.  It  recognizes  and 
approves  the  human  choice  and  constancy,  and  re- 
wards it  by  laying  upon  it  mighty  tasks  and  painful 
tests,  as  well  for  its  further  making  as  for  its  more  per- 
fect proving  and  approving. 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  161 

We  have  seen  that  Jesus  brought  to  His  pubHc  min- 
istry a  character  thorouglily  formed,  and  an  attitude 
toward  hfe  definitely  and  finally  taken.  But  not  so 
utterly  so  but  that  He  could  even  still  be  assailed  by 
yet  more  subtle  and  perfect  temptations.  When  He 
had  withstood  and  vanquished  these  too,  we  are  told 
that  the  Tempter  departs  from  Him  only  for  a  season. 
At  the  great  close,  the  final  crisis  which  He  specially 
claims  as  His  hour,  the  hour  that  should  glorify  by 
proving  and  perfecting  Him  to  the  limit,  unto  the  death 
to  sin  and  unto  the  life  to  God  and  holiness,  —  was 
there  not  still  temptation  there  ?  If  not,  then  also 
there  was  nothing  there  to  conquer,  or  to  be  exalted 
and  glorified  by.  Not  my  will,  but  Thine  be  done!  — 
expresses  forever  the  fact  that  there  was  something 
within  Himself  to  deny,  to  sacrifice,  through  the  Eternal 
Spirit  to  offer  up  as  the  perfect  oblation  to  the  Father. 

With  regard  to  the  whole  general  matter  of  tempta- 
tion and  sin,  it  is  remarkable  how  St.  Paul,  St.  James, 
and  St.  Peter  agree  in  almost  the  very  terms  of  their 
teaching.  They  all  recognize  not  only  the  necessity 
but  the  blessedness  of  manifold  trials  or  temptations. 
The  benefits  to  be  derived  from  them  come  through 
patience  or  endurance,  the  power  to  suffer  and  survive ; 
and  they  consist  in  a  quality  or  character  which  they 
unite  in  calling  provedness  or  approvedness,  and  which 
is  the  condition  of  receiving  the  reward  or  crown  of  life. 
On  the  other  hand,  temptation  yielded  to  produces  sin 
and  death;  and  here  it  seems  to  me  that  St.  James's 
account  of  the  process  can  be  shown  to  be  psycho- 
logically   and    scientifically    exact.     Temptation,    he 


162  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

says,  does  not  come  from  God,  but  each  man  is  tempted 
when  he  is  drawn  away  by  his  own  epithumia  and 
enticed.  This  epithumia  is  not  in  itself  sin;  it  is  too 
strongly  rendered  lust,  and  is  in  reality  only  the  natural 
appetites  and  desires  which  are  an  essential  part  of  our 
human  constitution.  But  for  these  we  could  not  live 
our  natural  lives,  and  but  for  these  we  should  be  in- 
capable of  those  very  temptations  which  have  just  been 
stated  to  be  the  very  conditions,  if  not  causes,  of  our 
supremest  blessedness.  Epithumia  is  indeed  the  only 
matrix  or  mother  of  sin;  in  it  alone  lies  our  suscepti- 
bility for  sin,  and  when  sin  does  come  it  comes  only 
through  appetite  and  desire.  But  it  is  only  when  it 
has  actually  conceived  and  borne  sin  that  it  becomes 
sinful.  If  our  appetites  and  desires  —  as  ours,  through 
our  own  complicity  with  them,  by  consent  and  co- 
operation of  our  own  minds,  affections,  and  wills  — 
have  imported  into  us  the  sperma  or  seed  of  wrong  or 
false  or  inordinate  gratification  and  indulgence,  then 
sin  is  bom  in  us.  And  then  it  comes  not  from  the  ex- 
ternal temptations,  nor  even  from  the  internal  sus- 
ceptibility or  capacity  for  temptation,  but  from  the 
wrong  reason  and  the  weak  will  of  the  person  in  not 
keeping  the  appetite  or  desire  to  its  proper  and  ordi- 
nate object  and  function.  A  natural  desire  which  by 
our  own  indulgence  in  sinful  gratification  has  grown 
inordinate  or  abnormal  becomes  a  lust,  and  to  be 
tempted  by  our  lusts  in  this  sense  is  in  itself  a  sin,  be- 
cause to  have  such  lusts  at  all  is  a  sin.  For  this  reason, 
with  men  in  general,  temptation  is  itself  sinful;  because 
for  the  most  part  our  temptations  come  not  alone  from 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  163 

external  stimuli  and  internal  constitution,  but  from 
habit  and  propensity  bred  in  us  through  our  own  past 
complicity,  through  sinful  entertainment  and  indul- 
gence, if  not  always  in  act  yet  in  thought  and  sympathy. 
It  is  only  beings  who  like  ourselves  can  reproduce  in 
consciousness  the  objects  of  our  desires  and  pamper 
these  with  the  unwholesome  food  of  memory,  imagina- 
tion, and  anticipation,  who  are  capable  of  lusts  in  the 
stronger  and  sinful  sense.  But  as  to  have  lusts  and 
indulge  them  is  our  sin,  just  so  not  to  have  lusts  or 
indulge  them,  by  the  proper  control  and  sanctification 
of  our  natural  desires,  is  our  holiness,  and  our  only 
way  of  holiness.  The  possibility  of  the  sin  is  the  con- 
dition of  the  holiness. 

Now  let  us  see  how  the  indubitable  facts  of  our  Lord's 
sinless  human  life  compel  us,  as  I  hold,  to  construe  the 
manner  and  the  matter  of  His  holiness.  He  was  born 
into  and  lived  our  life  and  was  in  every  respect  a  man 
like  unto  us.  He  was  born  in  the  flesh,  because  the 
flesh  is  our  lowest  and  most  earthly  constituent  and 
carries  in  it  and  with  it  all  the  possibilities,  all  the 
weaknesses  and  temptations  and  dangers,  in  a  word 
all  the  probation  of  our  earthly  life.  All  these  He 
met  fairly  and  squarely  as  a  man,  and  as  a  man  was 
thoroughly  proved  by  them  and  perfectly  approved. 
Now  our  Lord  did  not  do  that  in  our  nature  which  no 
man  within  the  limits  of  his  own  nature  or  by  the  exer- 
cise of  only  his  own  powers  is  capable  of  doing.  He 
was  not  holy  by  nature,  nor  righteous  by  the  law.  The 
impossibilities  of  humanity  were  as  much  impossibili- 
ties for  Him  as  for  us.     He  bare  all  our  weaknesses 


164  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

and  carried  all  our  sorrows.  He  had  as  much  to  hunger 
and  thirst  after  a  righteousness  which  was  not  His  own 
as  we  have,  and  He  did  it  infinitely  more.  If  He  was 
actually  holy  and  righteous  as  none  but  He  was  or  is, 
it  was  because  He  was  possessed,  and  humanly  pos- 
sessed, of  a  higher  secret,  a  truer  way,  a  more  sufficient 
power,  of  human  holiness  and  righteousness  than 
human  nature  in  itself  contains  or  human  will  can  by 
itself  acquire.  No  man  ever  so  felt  in  himself  the  de- 
ficiency and  poverty  of  mere  nature,  or  ever  so  con- 
fessed in  himself  the  impotency  and  insufficiency  of 
the  human  will  for  the  higher  purposes  of  holiness, 
righteousness,  and  life,  as  did  Jesus  Christ.  It  is 
because  there  was  never  one  who  so  knew  His  utter 
dependence  upon  God,  and  therefore  so  knew  what  in 
God  He  had  to  depend  on,  that  there  was  never  one 
but  He  who  so  perfectly  knew  God  as  our  holiness,  our 
righteousness,  and  our  life.  But  in  all  this  He  only 
knows  what  He  calls  us  too  to  the  knowledge  of  in  Him, 
and  what  He  promises  us  that  we  shall  perfectly  share 
with  Him. 

Thus,  we  may  conclude,  Jesus  Christ  was  indeed 
holy  in  our  nature,  and  therefore  our  nature  was  holy 
in  Him.  But  He  was  holy  as  a  man  and  in  the  only  way 
in  which  a  man  can  be  holy.  He  was  holy  by  the  con- 
quest of  sin.  And  this  He  was  and  did,  as  we  too  must 
be  and  do,  after  Him  and  in  Him,  —  not  within  the 
limits  of  our  own  nature,  nor  by  the  powers  of  our  own 
will  (and  yet  not  without  these  too),  but  through  His 
all-sufficient  way  of  perfect  union  and  unity  with  God. 
That  means  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  author  to  us  of 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  165 

everything  else  because  He  was  the  author  and  finisher 
of  our  faith.  The  only  thing  that  stands  between  us 
and  everything  else  is  the  absence  or  the  incomplete- 
ness of  our  faith. 


XIV 

THE  TRUE  BAPTISM  AND  BAPTIZER 

The  point  in  the  ministry  of  John  the  Baptist  in- 
tended in  every  one  of  the  Gospels  to  be  specially 
emphasized  is  not  the  tremendous  positive  importance 
of  that  ministry  as  a  preparation  for  Christ,  unques- 
tionable as  that  was,  so  much  as  the  contrast  and 
disparity  so  vividly  expressed  by  John  himself  between 
his  own  baptism  and  that  which  Jesus  after  him  was 
to  exercise.  When  we  speak  of  the  baptism  of  John 
as  no  true  one,  and  that  of  Jesus  as  the  only  true  one, 
we  are  using  the  word  true  in  its  deeper  New  Testa- 
ment sense.  It  is  not  that  in  our  ordinary  meaning  of 
it  John's  baptism  was  in  any  way  unmeaning  or  un- 
true. It  contained  as  much  significance  and  sincerity 
as  the  greater  Elijah,  the  last  and  most  intense  of  the 
prophets,  could  put  into  it.  Meaning  enough  John 
could  put  and  did  put  into  his  baptism.  It  meant,  and 
it  could  not  have  expressed  more  strongly,  the  neces- 
sity and  need  of  the  deepest  and  the  truest  repentance. 
But  all  the  earnestness  and  sincerity  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist could  not  do  more  than  mean  and  demand  the 
repentance  it  symbolized  and  preached.  The  true 
baptism  needed  was  one  which  could  not  only  mean 
the  truth  it  expressed,  but  could  be  the  truth  it  meant. 

166 


The  True  Baptism  and  Baptizer     167 

In  other  words,  we  have  embodied  in  John  the  Baptist 
all  the  accumulated  fire  and  intensity  of  all  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets,  and  at  the  same  time  the  sum  of  all 
the  long  experience  of  their  weakness  and  unprofit- 
ableness without  a  baptism  from  heaven  with  some- 
thing more.  The  Law  and  the  Prophets  could  build 
the  altar  and  lay  the  wood  and  place  the  sacrifice,  but 
it  required  a  greater  than  Elijah  to  call  down  the  fire 
from  heaven  to  consume  this  sacrifice.  When  John 
said,  I  can  only  baptize  you  with  water,  he  expressed 
the  experience  of  all  law  and  all  prophets.  We  know 
and  can  say  and  can  mean  what  we  want;  but  who  or 
what  can  give  us  what  we  want  ?  It  is  not  in  our  nature 
to  possess  it,  it  is  not  within  our  powers  to  create  or 
acquire  it. 

We  are  made  not  for  sin  but  for  holiness,  and  not  for 
death  but  for  life.  We  are  constituted  by  our  nature 
not  only  capable  of  conceiving  perfect  holiness  and 
eternal  life,  but  under  a  necessity  of  recognizing  these, 
if  we  reflect  upon  ourselves  at  all,  as  the  true  expression 
of  our  nature  and  the  true  exercise  of  our  powers. 
And  that  which  thus  cannot  but  be  a  law  to  us  we  can 
know  only  as  an  impossibility.  We  might  on  the  one 
hand  deny  the  impossibility,  and,  with  Kant,  while 
recognizing  the  infinitude  of  the  law,  say  still,  I  ought 
and  therefore  I  can.  Or  we  might,  on  the  other  hand, 
recognizing  the  infinitude  and  therefore  the  impossi- 
bility of  the  law,  conclude  that  it  cannot  be  ours  and 
acquiesce  in  something  lower  and  more  accessible. 
Let  us  examine  briefly  each  of  these  alternatives. 

With  regard  to  the  first  alternative,  Kant  indeed 


168  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

postulates  for  us  an  eternal  time  in  which  to  fulfil  our 
infinite  law.  There  is  great  truth  also  in  the  demand 
that  the  law  is  ours  and  the  obedience  or  fulfilment 
must  therefore  be  our  own.  In  undertaking  human 
life,  in  the  full  meaning  of  it,  we  are  entering  upon  an 
infinite  and  eternal  task.  This  task  must  be  possible 
in  the  end,  if  there  be  an  end  to  that  which  is  infinite; 
or  at  any  rate  it  must  be  capable  of  a  real,  continuous 
and  eternal,  approximation,  and  be  in  that  sense  pos- 
sible. But  even  in  that  sense  it  will  be  possible  only 
upon  the  condition  that  from  the  beginning  and  all 
along  the  perfect  end  is  recognized  and  we  mean  and 
intend  nothing  short  of  the  infinite  and  the  eternal. 
Every  thought  and  act  of  life  from  the  beginning  must 
have  for  its  principle  and  its  maxim  —  not  less  sin, 
but  no  sin  at  all;  and  not  more  holiness,  but  all  the 
holiness  of  God.  I  recognize  the  fact  that  the  law  is 
ours  and  the  fulfilment  of  it  can  be  only  all  our  own, 
and  also  the  fact  that  an  eternal  obedience  must  be 
possible  for  us.  But  what  we  want  to  recognize  also, 
and  what  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  reveals  to  us,  is 
this:  that  an  obedience  may  be  all  ours  and  only  ours, 
and  yet  be  incapable  of  becoming  ours  in  isolation  or 
apart  from  that  without  which  we  are  not  even  our- 
selves. Our  obedience  is  not  God's  but  ours;  but 
though  it  be  not  God's,  yet  it  is  God  Himself  in  us, 
enabling  us  to  be  ourselves  and  to  render  to  Him  what 
is  ours.  It  is  true  that  the  infinite  law  must  be  eter- 
nally possible  for  us;  there  is  no  ought  where  there  is 
not  also  a  can.  But  neither  the  nature  nor  the  will  of 
man  can  discover  in  itself  aught  but  an  actual  impos- 


The  True  Baptism  and  Baptizer     169 

sibility  of  its  own  true  law.  Its  possibility  lies  only  in 
the  union  and  unity  with  God  into  which  humanity  is 
brought  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  the  union 
and  unity  with  Christ  into  which  we  can  be  brought 
only  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  other  alternative  was  to  recognize  in  the  in- 
finitude and  impossibility  of  the  law  its  inapplicability 
to  ourselves,  and  to  come  down  to  some  standard  or 
measure  of  life  which  we  feel  to  be  practicable  and 
attainable.  Can  we  do  so  and  remain  ourselves  — 
even  the  selves  to  which  we  have  attained  .'*  Suppose 
we  should  succeed  in  dropping  out  of  our  lives  the  call 
to  the  infinite  and  the  eternal;  suppose  we  should 
successfully  suppress  in  ourselves  all  yearning  or 
aspiration  after  anything  more  than  we  actually  are 
or  can  make  ourselves;  suppose  we  should  thus  limit 
and  confine  our  thoughts,  our  hopes,  and  ourselves 
to  what  many  declare  to  be  the  only  realities  and  values 
of  human  life  or  destiny ;  —  if  this  result  were  uni- 
versally reached,  should  we  still  be,  and  continue  to 
be,  even  the  inchoate  and  imperfect  men  we  are  now  ? 
No;  even  if  this  be  the  truth  and  the  fact  with  regard 
to  human  life,  we  still  need  to  cling  to  our  illusions,  for 
it  is  these  illusions  alone  that  ennoble  us  with  what 
truth  or  beauty  or  goodness  above  ourselves  is  in  us. 

There  is  no  one  who  reflects  or  cares  who  does  not 
in  his  way  believe  in,  and  in  his  measure  practise,  both 
repentance  and  faith.  He  knows  dissatisfaction  with 
what  he  is ;  he  knows  that  there  is  the  better,  the  best, 
which  he  is  not  —  and  would  be.  It  was  a  profound 
thought  of  Plato,  that  all  men  will  The  Good,  —  not 


170  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

the  relative  but  the  absolute  good.  However  appetite, 
desire,  passion  may  crave  and  choose  the  bad,  in  the 
inner  man,  which  is  the  true  self  of  every  man,  there  is  a 
will  which  is  "of  the  good."  What  is  that  good?  Is 
it  only  something  a  little  better,  or  even  a  great  deal 
better,  than  we  are  ?  No;  it  is  to  be  wholly,  completely, 
perfectly  better  than  we  are.  Suppose  that  our  Lord, 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  had  preached  a  prac- 
ticable or  attainable  righteousness,  such  as  we  have 
been  talking  about;  suppose  He  had  called  us  to  follow 
Him  and  be  just  as  free  from  sin  and  as  holy  as  all  of 
us  are  able  to  be ;  and  had  not,  on  the  contrary,  bidden 
us  follow  Him  infinitely  higher  than  that,  and  be  per- 
fect even  as  our  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect; 
—  would  He  in  that  case  have  preached  a  more  truly 
human  Gospel,  or  have  more  powerfully  drawn  all 
men  unto  Him  ? 

To  us  all,  if  we  be  men,  and  just  in  proportion  as  we 
are  men,  both  repentance  and  faith  are  a  very  great 
deal  more  than  we  realize.  ^Vho  does  not  know  dis- 
satisfaction, sorrow,  condemnation,  negation,  within 
himself,  of  himself?  The  point  is,  not  only  what  all 
this  means,  but  how  much  does  it  mean  to  us  of  what 
it  must  mean,  and  cannot  mean  less  than,  in  itself.  I 
repent  of  what  I  am  that  is  sinful.  Of  how  much  do 
I  repent,  and  how  much  do  I  repent  of  it  ?  Do  I  re- 
pent of  all  or  of  part  of  my  sinfulness,  and  do  I  wholly 
or  only  partially  repent  of  it?  Surely  repentance,  if 
it  is  repentance  at  all,  must  repent  of  sin  as  sin  and  of 
any  and  all  sin.  And  equally  surely  it  cannot  mean 
the  more  or  less,  the  partial,  but  must  mean  the  whole 


The  True  Baptism  and  Baptizer      171 

putting  away  of  sin.  Everything  is  defined  by  its  end 
and  there  can  be  no  other  end  or  final  cause  or  meaning 
of  repentance  than  the  putting  away  of  sin,  —  all  sin 
and  a  real  and  complete  putting  away.  Now  this 
paradox  or  antinomy  within  us,  that  only  a  completed 
holiness  can  be  the  meaning  from  the  beginning  or  the 
full  expression  in  the  end  of  ourselves,  and  yet  that  such 
a  holiness  is  something  hopelessly  unattainable  by  us, 
finds  its  perfect  solution  and  reconciliation  only  in 
Jesus  Christ.  This  we  shall  hope  to  make  clear  as  we 
proceed  further;  but  there  is  one  point  which  I  wish  to 
reiterate  as  a  matter  of  the  verbal  interpretation  of  the 
passage  which  we  have  been  for  some  time  considering. 
That  which  is  desiderated  in  human  salvation;  that 
which  made  the  law  and  the  prophets,  and  which 
makes  all  Law  and  all  Prophets,  ineffectual,  however 
true  their  meaning  and  earnest  their  purpose;  that 
which  necessitated  and  necessitates  the  true  Baptizer 
and  the  true  Baptism,  is  not  that  men  have  not  always 
and  everywhere  known  something  of  God  and  some- 
thing of  themselves,  something  of  sin  and  something 
of  holiness,  something  of  repentance  and  something  of 
faith,  —  but  that  the  more  they  have  known  of  all 
these,  the  more  they  have  felt  that  antinomy  between 
what  they  ought  and  what  they  can.  We  have  re- 
pentance, but  how  may  we,  how  can  we,  —  no  man 
can,  —  repent  unto  the  putting  away  of  sin  ?  We  have 
faith,  but  who  of  us  can  believe  unto  the  limit,  the  end, 
eternal  life  ?  ^Miat  we  want  is  an  effectual  repentance, 
a  repentance  which  not  only  means,  but  is,  the  putting 
away  of  sin.     Or  —  what  is  only  the  reverse  of  the 


172  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

other  —  a  faith  which  not  only  means  the  putting  on, 
but  which  puts  on,  hoHness  and  eternal  life.  The  an- 
swer to  this  one  need  of  human  life  is  to  be  found  only 
in  Him  whom  God  did  exalt  with  His  right  hand  to  be 
a  Prince  and  a  Saviour,  for  to  give  repentance  and 
remission  of  sins.  Jesus  Christ  both  is  in  Himself 
and  is  to  us  the  divine  gift  of  such  a  repentance  as  is, 
as  actually  accomplishes,  the  putting  away  of  sin;  and 
of  such  a  faith  as  is,  as  actually  attains  unto,  holiness 
and  eternal  life. 

I  say  that,  first,  Jesus  Christ  is  in  Himself  the  perfect 
metanoia  and  the  perfect  pistis.  He  is  that  perfect 
attitude  of  humanity  toward  sin  which  is  its  putting 
away,  both  the  death  of  us  to  it  and  the  death  of  it  in 
us.  He  is  that  perfect  attitude  of  humanity  toward 
God  and  holiness  and  eternal  life  which  is  the  putting 
on  and  possession  of  all  these.  In  Jesus  Christ  hu- 
manity has  accomplished  its  salvation  through  the 
perfection  of  all  those  dispositions  and  acts  and  char- 
acters which  effect  and  constitute  salvation.  In  Him 
it  has  thrown  off  its  old  self  of  deficiency  and  insuffi- 
ciency, of  weakness  and  sin  and  death,  and  put  on  a 
new  self  which  is  more  itself  than  before,  just  because 
it  is  itself  not  in  itself  but  in  God.  I  repeat  that  salva- 
tion, to  be  a  real  salvation  and  human  salvation,  the 
only  salvation  either  needful  or  possible  for  us,  must 
be  an  act  of  humanity  itself,  the  perfection  of  its  own 
negation,  renunciation,  and  annulling  of  all  from 
which  it  needs  to  be  saved,  and  of  its  own  affirmation, 
appropriation,  and  realization  of  all  to  which  it  needs 
to  be  saved.     Nothing  that  God  can  do  merely  for  us, 


The  True  Baptism  and  Baptizer      173 

not  even  anything  that  God  alone  can  do  in  us,  can 
effect  or  constitute  our  salvation.  Only  that  can  be 
our  salvation  which  we  ourselves  are,  and  are  through 
our  own  doing  and  becoming.  But  we  can  do  nothing 
and  become  nothing  and  be  nothing  that  effects  or 
constitutes  salvation  in  ourselves  or  otherwise  than  in 
and  through  God,  who  alone  is  our  true  and  perfect 
self.  Jesus  Christ  —  viewed  now  wholly  on  His 
human  side  —  is  humanity  in  that  perfect  relation  to 
God  which  is  the  condition  of  its  perfect  life  in  God. 
This  perfection  of  relation  and  of  activity  with  and  in 
God  enables  humanity  in  His  person  to  do  that  which 
otherwise  it  is  weak  through  the  flesh,  in  its  own  nature 
or  in  itself,  to  do.  It  enables  it  to  carry  to  the  limit 
both  its  negation  of  sin  and  its  affirmation  of  holiness, 
to  attain  the  metanoia  unto  death  and  the  yistis  unto 
life.  When  therefore  we  say  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
author  and  finisher,  the  beginner  and  ender,  of  our 
faith,  we  mean  that  He  is  the  perfecter  in  His  own 
human  life  of  all  those  dispositions,  attitudes,  habits, 
of  all  that  divine  human  character,  through  which  we 
need  to  work  out,  and  in  which  we  shall  possess  and 
enjoy,  our  own  salvation.  All  the  types  and  promises 
of  the  Old  Testament  point  out  the  truth  that  if  it  is 
humanity  that  is  to  inherit,  it  is  humanity  that  in  its 
spiritual  history  was  to  work  out  its  own  inheritance. 
It  was  the  woman's  seed  that  in  the  end  was  to  bruise 
the  serpent's  head.  It  was  Abraham's  seed,  the  per- 
fect inheritor  not  of  his  blood  but  of  his  faith,  that  was 
to  receive  the  promises.  To  all  the  promises  Christ 
and  humanity  are  synonymous.     All  that  was  to  be 


174  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

done  or  received  by  it  was  done  or  received  in  Him. 
All  that  was  fulfilled  in  Him  was  fulfilled  in  its  name 
and  by  it  in  His  person.  Thus  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  speaks  of  a  promise  made  not  to  angels,  but 
to  man  or  humanity,  of  headship  over  the  world  that 
was  to  come.  And  this  promise  we  see  not  yet  ful- 
filled in  him  or  it,  not  yet  in  humanity,  but  we  see  One 
already  exalted  to  that  headship  in  whom  in  anticipa- 
tion all  are  exalted.  One  has  suffered  and  been  per- 
fected, has  tasted  death  and  inherited  life,  but  that 
One  only  as  the  leader  and  captain  of  all :  It  became 
Him,  for  whom  and  through  whom  are  all  things,  in 
bringing  many  sons  to  glory,  to  perfect  (first)  the  cap- 
tain of  their  salvation  through  sufferings. 

In  the  second  place,  all  that  Jesus  Christ  was  and  is 
in  Himself,  of  accomplished  and  completed  metanoia 
and  pistis,  of  perfected  death  to  sin  and  life  to  God, 
all  that  He  is  to  us  and  is  to  be  in  us.  What  is  preached 
to  us  in  His  name  —  that  is  to  say,  what  is  preached  to 
us  as  ours  in  Him  —  is  the  repentance  unto  remission, 
the  perfect  putting  away  of  our  sin,  upon  which  our 
salvation  depends.  We  take  this  to  be  ours  in  Him, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  in  two  senses,  or  rather  in  two 
stages  of  one  and  the  same  sense.  In  the  first  sense 
we  see  ourselves  made  actually  and  perfectly  sinless 
and  holy  in  Jesus  Christ.  We  see  in  Him  that  perfect 
relation  to  God  and  that  perfect  activity  in  God  which 
for  us  as  for  Him  is  in  itself  holiness  and  eternal  life. 
More  definitely,  and  as  the  consequence  of  that,  we  see 
in  Him  that  completed  attitude  to  sin  that  is  the  very 
death  of  it  and  to  it,  and  that  perfected  attitude  to  God 


The  True  Baptism  and  Baptizer      175 

and  holiness  that  is  their  real  possession  —  which  is 
the  substance  and  matter  of  all  that  must  be  ours  in 
order  to  be  saved.  It  is  true  we  see  this  actual  holiness, 
this  completed  salvation,  as  ours  in  the  totality  only 
and  the  eternity  of  our  relation  to  Christ,  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  all  that  is  ours  in  Him.  But,  however  far  off 
it  may  be  from  us  or  we  from  it,  we  cannot  and  ought 
not  to  think  of  our  salvation  as  anything  less  than  our 
own  perfected  and  completed  sinlessness  and  holiness. 
We  may  be  to  the  depths  of  our  souls  grateful  and 
happy  to  be  sinners  pardoned  and  forgiven  by  divine 
grace.  But  surely  God  would  not  have  us  satisfied 
with  that  as  the  end  and  substance  of  the  salvation 
He  gives  us  in  His  Son.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  power  of 
God  m  us  unto  salvation.  It  does  not  require  an 
exercise  of  divine  power  to  extend  pardon;  it  does  re- 
quire it  to  endow  and  enable  us  with  all  the  qualities, 
energies,  and  activities  that  make  for  and  that  make 
holiness  and  life.  See  how  St.  Paul  speaks  of  it  when 
he  prays.  That  we  may  know  the  exceeding  greatness 
of  God's  power  to  usward  who  believe,  according  to 
that  working  of  the  strength  of  His  might  which  He 
wrought  in  Christ  when  He  raised  Him  from  the  dead. 
The  victory  of  our  Lord  over  sin  and  death  as  mani- 
fested in  His  resurrection  was  an  exercise  on  His  part 
of  a  spiritual  divine  power  which  no  enemy  was  able 
to  withstand.  St.  Paul  wishes  us  to  understand  by 
experience  that  in  Christ  we  are  the  subjects  of  that 
selfsame  divine  power  unto  the  perfection  of  holiness 
and  the  completeness  of  life. 

But,  as  has  been  already  in  part  explained,  there  is 


176  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

another  sense  in  which  we  view  as  ours  the  putting 
away  of  sin  in  Jesus  Christ.  And,  although  this  other 
is  a  lower  and  only  a  preliminary  or  anticipatory  sense, 
yet  it  is  one  which  more  immediately  concerns  us,  and 
which  for  that  reason  occupies  much  of  the  attention 
of  the  New  Testament  interpreters  of  the  work  of 
Christ.  Our  progressive  and  final  real  oneness  with 
God  depends  no  little,  indeed  depends  altogether,  upon 
our  provisional  status  and  relation  with  Him  in  and  dur- 
ing the  process  of  that  unification.  The  wandering  of 
the  prodigal  son  was  a  spiritual  and  not  merely  local  or 
material  one.  TVTiat  he  wanted  for  his  real  return  was 
an  internal  or  subjective  reconciliation  and  restoration 
to  unity  with  his  father.  But  if  the  external  return 
had  not  taken  place  and  the  external  status  of  father 
and  son  been  restored  first,  there  could  not  have  come 
about  the  gradual  healing  and  growth  of  internal  and 
real  unity.  Above  all  things,  such  an  essentially  spir- 
itual and  personal  relation  as  that  of  father  and  son 
demands  that  the  objective  status  should  first  exist  in 
order  that  the  subjective  spirit  of  sonship  should  come 
into  existence  by  being  born  of  it  and  nourished  by  it. 
Because  we  are  sons,  God  sends  forth  the  spirit  of  His 
Son  into  our  hearts,  crying  Abba,  Father.  That  is 
to  say,  God  has  first  in  Jesus  Christ  established  an 
objective  status  or  relation  of  sons.  Into  this  He 
receives  us  by  an  act  of  grace  on  His  part  and  through 
no  act  on  ours.  He  then  expects  us  in  this  objective 
status  or  relation  of  pure  grace  to  appropriate  to  our- 
selves the  relation  He  has  conferred  upon  us,  to  make 
ourselves  what  He  has  made  us,  to  enter  into  the  spirit 


The  True  Baptism  and  Baptizer      177 

and  life  of  the  sonship  which  is  ours  and  become  in- 
wardly the  sons  that  we  are  outwardly  in  Christ  Jesus. 
God's  part  precedes  and  conditions  and  produces  ours 
in  the  work  of  our  salvation.  He  not  only  is  by  nature, 
but  He  has  made  Himself  by  grace,  our  Father  before 
and  in  order  that  we  may  make  ourselves  His  sons  by 
faith.  We  love  Him  as  Father  because  He  first  loved 
us  as  children.  Faith  does  not  originate  or  create  or 
give,  it  only  receives  and  appropriates  and  realizes. 
Just  as  God  calls  things  that  are  not  as  though  they 
w^ere,  because  His  calling  makes  them  so,  even  so  faith 
accepts  things  as  He  calls  them,  and  in  accepting  finds 
them  so.  The  father  received  his  prodigal  son  upon 
the  terms  not  of  a  prodigal,  but  of  a  son  in  good  stand- 
ing; he  made  it  for  him  as  though  he  had  never  sinned 
and  were  not  in  fact  a  sinner  against  his  love  and  good- 
ness; by  the  very  act  of  accepting  and  treating  him  as 
though  his  offence  were  not,  he  most  effectually  re- 
moved not  only  the  imputation,  but  all  inhering 
reality  of  that  offence.  And  the  son  himself,  in  and 
by  most  completely  accepting  and  appropriating  the 
status  of  perfect  sonship  into  which  he  was  received, 
most  effectually  restored  himself  to  the  perfect  spirit 
and  internal  character  of  sonship. 

But  in  the  above  illustration,  the  essential  condition 
of  the  reconciliation  and  accomplished  unity  of  father 
and  son  was  a  complete  right  disposition  and  attitude 
on  both  sides  in  the  matter.  There  must  be  on  the 
side  of  the  father  the  willingness  to  accept  at  once,  not 
all  that  was  due  from  the  son,  but  the  right  attitude 
possible  for  him  at  the  time  toward  what  he  had  been 


178  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

and  what  he  would  be.  And  there  must  be  on  the 
part  of  the  son  the  readiness  to  bring  no  less  than  this. 
Without  this  much  there  is  nothing  to  go  on,  nothing 
that  can  be  given  or  received.  Bringing  the  matter 
back  to  our  relation  to  God,  we  cannot  indeed  bring 
to  Him  at  once  a  sin  completely  put  away  and  a  oneness 
with  Him  restored,  but  we  can  bring  to  Him  an  attitude 
toward  our  sin  which  means  and  can  never  be  satisfied 
with  less  than  its  complete  putting  away;  and  we  can 
bring  an  attitude  toward  holiness  which  means  and  can 
never  stop  short  of  the  most  perfect  actual  attainment 
of  the  most  perfect  holiness.  If  we  do  in  reality  and 
in  sincerity  bring  this,  then  God  can  treat  what  we 
really  mean  and  intend  as  though  it  really  were,  and 
by  treating  them  so  or  calling  them  so  make  them  so. 
But  if,  on  the  contrary,  we  do  not  in  all  sincerity  and 
reality  mean  or  intend  so,  then  God  cannot  call  it  so, 
nor  by  calling  make  it  so.  For  God  can  give  only  what 
we  can  receive,  and  we  can  receive  only  what  we  are  in 
condition  to  receive,  viz. :  what  we  fully  know  and  feel 
the  want  of  and  what  we  truly  desire  and  will  and 
purpose  the  possession  of. 

The  true  or  real  baptism,  then,  is  the  endowment 
from  above  with  that  without  which  we  cannot  be  our- 
selves or  fulfil  our  law  or  accomplish  the  end  of  our 
lives.  Jesus  Christ  was,  first,  the  True  Baptized. 
There  was  in  Him  all  that  humanity  lacks  in  itself  for 
self-realization:  the  perfect  relation  to  God,  the  perfect 
oneness  with  God  in  person  and  in  work,  the  conse- 
quent power  through  an  effectual  metanoia  and  pistis, 
and  the  divine  grace  fully  operative  through  these,  to 


The  True  Baptism  and  Baptizer      179 

throw  off  sin  and  put  on  holiness.  I  do  not  see  but 
that  our  Lord's  own  baptism  from  heaven  was  iden- 
tical with  the  anointing  which  constituted  Him  the 
Christ,  the  impartation  to  humanity  in  His  person  of 
all  of  which  it  was  deficient  by  nature  and  for  which  it 
was  insufficient  in  the  exercise  of  its  own  will  or  ener- 
gies. He  is  thus  earth  wedded  with  heaven,  man 
supplemented  and  completed  by  God,  the  di\'ine  Word 
and  Spirit,  truth  and  love,  holiness  and  righteousness 
and  eternal  life,  realized  and  embodied  in  creation. 
And  being  the  true  baptized,  Jesus  Christ  is  the  True 
Baptizer.  He  brings  us  into  His  own  relation  with 
the  Father,  associates  us  with  Himself  in  His  own  son- 
ship,  and  imparts  to  us  the  communion  and  fellowship 
of  His  own  filial  Spirit.  He  is  thus  not  only  our  Christ 
but  our  chrism;  the  precious  oil  poured  out  upon  His 
head  runs  down  to  the  borders  of  His  garment,  and 
anoints  His  whole  mystical  person,  which  is  the  body 
of  redeemed  and  sanctified  humanity.  He  is  our 
baptizer  because  He  is  our  baptism.  All  that  He  has 
become  for  us  He  becomes  in  us  by  incorporating  us 
into  Himself  and  endowing  us  with  all  the  grace  and 
power  of  what  He  Himself  is. 


XV 

THE  RESURRECTION 

We  have  now,  I  think,  the  material  for  the  Christian 
interpretation  of  the  work  of  Christ.  Our  Lord  says 
at  the  very  last  that  He  has  glorified  God  in  that  He 
has  accomplished  the  ergon  or  task  which  God  had 
given  Him  to  do.  That  task  or  work  had  been  a  life- 
whole  and  a  life-long  one,  but  it  was  completed  in  His 
death  and  consummated  in  His  resurrection.  We 
have  come  now  to  sum  up  all  that  has  been  said  in  an 
attempt  to  define  as  precisely  as  we  can  the  meaning 
of  the  resurrection  as  the  consummation  of  the  work. 

It  is  St,  Paul  who  first  in  Christianity  undertook  to 
interpret  the  whole  spiritual  significance  of  the  life  and 
death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  I  hope 
before  we  are  quite  done  to  demonstrate  that  the  entire 
logical  development  of  St.  Paul's  doctrine  is  from  a 
germ  inherent  and  essential  in  the  truth  itself,  that  it 
was  distinctly  stated  by  our  Lord  Himself,  and  that 
it  was  the  germinal  teaching  of  the  Apostles  before 
St.  Paul.  In  doing  so,  I  shall  have  to  recall  and  cor- 
relate the  principal  conclusions  already  reached.  The 
Gospel  as  such  begins  with  the  objective  fact  of  the 
taking  or  putting  away  of  sin  by  Jesus  Christ.  It 
proceeds  with  the  universal  proclamation  of  the  double 

180 


The  Resurrection  181 

remission  in  His  name,  a  remission  of  present  pardon 
through  faith  in  Him,  and  a  remission  of  real  deliver- 
ance through  final  participation  with  Him.  The 
difference  between  the  two  is  only  that  of  different 
stages  of  relation  to  the  same  thing,  between  the  pro- 
leptic  or  anticipatory  appropriation  of  faith  and  the 
progressive  and  final  appropriation  and  fruition  in 
fact.  What  in  its  totality  is  included  in  the  accom- 
plished work  of  our  Lord,  and  now  preached  to  us  in 
His  name,  is  that  He  has  in  Himself  abolished  sin  and 
death,  and  that  we  may,  in  faith  now,  and  more  and 
more  —  unto  ultimate  perfection  —  in  fact,  see  in  Him 
the  consummation  of  our  redemption  from  sin  and 
death.  It  is  just  this  truth,  as  I  hope  to  show,  which 
is  expanded  into  the  entire  doctrinal  system  of  St.  Paul. 
But  it  had  been  already  preached  in  principle  by  the 
Apostles  from  Jerusalem. 

It  is  usually  said  that  St.  Paul  knows  nothing  and 
cares  nothing  for  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus,  that  all  his 
interest  and  concern  is  with  the  resurrection  and  the 
risen  life.  The  fact  is,  I  think,  that  St.  Paul  is  the  first 
to  understand  and  interpret  that  life.  The  earlier 
evangelists  are  mostly  recorders  of  the  mere  words 
and  acts  of  Jesus.  As  has  been  shown,  for  Jesus  Him- 
self the  significant  and  determining  facts  of  His  human 
life  and  character  had  mostly  taken  place  before  His 
ministry  was  begun  and  His  disciples  brought  into 
intimate  association  and  acquaintance  with  Him. 
Thenceforth  He  and  they  are  taken  up  with  His  public 
relations  and  dealings.  They  do  record  personal 
experiences  of  His,  such  as  the  temptations  that  begin 


182  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

and  end  His  career,  but  generally  the  mystery  of  Him- 
self, of  His  elevation  above  themselves,  of  His  exalted 
authority  and  personal  claims,  they  simply  accept  in 
their  actuality,  and  make  no  effort  to  explain.  St. 
Paul,  on  the  contrary,  sums  up  all  the  details  of  our 
Lord's  life  and  focuses  them  in  the  one  luminous  act 
in  which  they  manifest  their  eternal  significance.  To 
him  the  individual  personal  life  of  Jesus  Himself  is 
more  than  it  is  to  any  one  else,  but  all  of  it  was  gathered 
up  and  expressed  in  the  one  consummate  act  of  His 
death,  as  all  the  fruits  of  it  were  contained  in  the  com- 
prehensive fact  of  His  resurrection.  While  to  the 
Synoptists  the  incidents  of  the  end  are  visible  and 
phenomenal,  to  St.  Paul  they  are  invisible,  spiritual, 
and  eternal.  They  see  mainly  the  external  facts  of  an 
actual  physical  death  and  resurrection;  he  sees  these 
too,  but  what  he  sees  in  them  is  the  final  scene  only 
of  a  lifelong  encounter  with  sin  and  an  ultimate  com- 
plete victory  over  it.  In  that  He  died,  the  death  that 
He  died.  He  died  to  sin;  does  not  that  carry  with  it  an 
interpretation  of  the  whole  earthly  career  of  Jesus, 
humanity's  champion  against  the  dark  mystery  of 
evil  ?  In  that  He  liveth.  He  liveth  unto  God ;  does 
not  that  contain  in  it  the  sum  of  all  that  was  done  and 
was  won  in  the  life  and  the  death  ? 

The  question  with  us,  then,  is  that  of  a  purely  spiritual 
interpretation  of  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ,  divested  at  present  of  any  connection  with 
physical  or  physiological  considerations  involved.  So, 
dissevered  from  lower  complications,  and  regarded  only 
in  its  higher  connection  and  context,  our  interpretation 


The  Resurrection  183 

will  proceed  on  the  following  lines:  The  death  and 
resurrection,  taken  together  as  one,  is  a  spiritual  act 
at  once  of  consummated  holiness  and  completed  or 
perfected  life.  In  that  act  humanity  has  accomplished 
its  end  and  reached  its  goal.  Studied  from  below 
upward,  first  on  the  human  and  then  on  the  divine  side 
of  it,  it  is  in  the  first  place  the  supreme  act  of  the  faith 
that  was  to,  and  that  in  that  act  did,  overcome  the 
world.  The  promise  was,  away  back,  made  to  faith 
that  it  should  be  the  heir  of  the  divine  blessing  or 
blessedness.  But  the  faith  that  should  inherit  could, 
in  the  nature  of  it,  that  it  should  be  faith,  be  nothing 
else  or  less  than  a  faith  that  could  be  tried  to  the  utter- 
most, and  that  could  survive  to  the  uttermost.  The 
Old  Testament  is  the  story  of  the  evolution  of  faith. 
It  is  a  picture  of  faith  in  all  stages  and  in  all  phases. 
Everywhere  the  essence  and  the  measure  of  faith  is  the 
power  to  suffer  and  to  live.  It  must  again  and  again 
have  the  sentence  of  death  not  only  passed  but  executed 
upon  it,  but  it  must  be  of  such  a  nature  that  death 
itself  cannot  destroy  it.  A  faith  that  death  can  kill  is 
not  faith,  because  faith  is  in  God  who  quickeneth  the 
dead.  The  faith  of  individuals  or  of  the  nation  in  the 
Old  Testament  is  a  faith  that  dies  often  and  yet  that 
never  dies.  It  survives  not  only  all  other  lesser  ills, 
but  even  the  unsparing  judgments  brought  upon  itself 
by  its  failures  and  sins.  Well  indeed  might  Jesus 
declare  that  the  whole  spiritual  teaching  and  illustra- 
tion of  the  Scriptures  from  beginning  to  end  is  one  long 
object-lesson  of  death  and  resurrection.  Well  might 
He  more  particularly  say.  Thus  it  is  written,  that  the 


184  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

Christ  should  suffer,  and  rise  again  from  the  dead. 
For  who  is  the  Christ  but  the  spiritual  man,  the  man 
of  the  perfect  faith,  and  so  of  the  perfect  grace,  and  so 
again  of  the  perfected  life.  The  Christ  is  humanity 
anointed  through  faith  with  the  grace  of  a  risen  and 
regenerate  life.  Jesus  Christ  is  thus  the  true  author 
and  finisher  and  completer  of  that  faith  which  over- 
comes the  world  and  surmounts  all  the  counter-condi- 
tions of  human  life  and  destiny.  If  we  reflect  but  a 
moment  upon  it,  and  the  more  and  more  we  reflect, 
we  shall  see  that  Jesus  could  have  achieved  what  He 
did  and  have  attained  what  he  is,  humanly,  only  on 
the  one  hand  by  the  faith  that  overcame  and  survived 
the  final  evil,  and  on  the  other  hand  by  the  supreme 
trial  that  not  only  proved  but  perfected  His  faith. 

Humanly,  then,  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus 
was  the  supreme  act  of  faith  by  which  humanity  first 
completely  realized  itself  in  God.  From  the  divine 
side  it  was,  in  the  second  place,  the  supreme  act  of  grace 
by  which  God  first  completely  realized  Himself  in  man. 
It  is  equally  true  that  Jesus  Christ  raised  Himself  from 
the  dead  by  His  faith  in  God,  and  that  God  raised  Him 
from  the  dead  by  His  grace  in  Him.  Neither  the 
raising  nor  the  rising  from  the  dead  is  primarily  or 
essentially  a  physical  act  or  fact.  It  is  a  spiritual 
thing,  a  matter  of  the  mind,  of  the  affections,  of  the 
will,  and  so  of  the  whole  personal  life.  The  man  who 
knows,  loves,  wills,  and  lives  God  is  risen  from  the 
dead.  What  shall  take  place  in  his  body  after  that  is 
a  mere  consequence  and  incident.  But  in  order  that  a 
man  shall  be  so  risen  he  has  to  put  away  sin  which 


The  Resurrection  185 

stands  between  him  and  God,  and  so,  by  consequence, 
death  which  stands  between  him  and  hfe.  This,  we 
have  seen  abundantly,  he  cannot  do  within  the  Hmita- 
tions  of  his  own  nature,  nor  within  the  operations  or 
possibiHties  of  his  own  will.  For  it  he  must  be  in  such 
relation  or  correspondence  with  God  as  that  divine 
forces  and  energies  shall  be  at  work  in  him.  These 
forces  and  energies  are  not  mechanical,  and  they  do 
not  work  mechanically  in  us.  God  does  not  raise  from 
the  dead  by  mere  fiat,  or  by  exercise  of  omnipotence. 
He  gives  us  the  truth,  the  spiritual  and  moral  beauty, 
the  divine  goodness,  which  if  we  truly  know  and  love 
and  do  will  be  our  resurrection  from  sin  and  death. 
It  is  not  any  truth,  beauty,  or  goodness,  or  these  things 
in  any  way  that  we  may  be  able  or  may  happen  to  con- 
ceive them,  that  will  be  our  salvation.  The  particular 
truth  spoken  of  is  the  truth  of  ourselves,  and  that  is  not 
any  thing  but  only  one  thing,  God's  truth  of  us,  the 
truth  of  the  divine  foreknowledge  and  predestination. 
As  God  sees  us,  as  He  has  eternally  foreseen  and  pur- 
posed us,  so  has  He  manifested  us  to  ourselves  in  Jesus 
Christ.  If  we  will  see  ourselves  in  Him,  and  purpose 
ourselves  in  Him,  and  so  finally  realize  ourselves  in  Him; 
if  we  seek  and  find  in  Him  the  truth  for  our  minds,  the 
beauty  for  our  hearts,  the  good  and  goodness  of  our 
wills  and  lives,  then  in  doing  so  and  in  having  done  so 
shall  we  attain  the  freedom  and  perfection  of  life  which 
is  in  itself  our  salvation. 

There  is  in  the  word  grace  something  of  the  am- 
biguity or  the  duality  which  we  have  observed  in 
other  terms.     It  sometimes  expresses  an  external  state 


186  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

or  status  into  which  we  have  been  objectively  brought 
by  an  act  not  our  own.  And  then  again  it  signifies  an 
internal  operation  subjectively  wrought  in  us  not  by 
ourselves,  or  by  us  not  in  our  own  power.  The  ex- 
planation is  that  the  gift  or  grace  of  God  in  the  Gospel 
is  a  conjoint  act  first  of  His  Word  and  secondly  of  His 
Spirit.  The  Word  is,  in  the  very  meaning  of  it,  an 
objective  expression  and  conveyance  to  us  of  what 
constitutes  our  salvation.  We  see,  love,  and  accept 
it  as  a  thing  outside  ourself  —  not  yet  our  own 
because  it  is  still  in  another  and  not  in  ourselves, 
and  yet  our  own  because  the  other  has  pronounced  it 
and  our  faith  has  objectively  and  proleptically  made 
it  our  own.  In  this  way,  in  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the 
divine  Word  to  us  of  our  completed  salvation,  we  are 
in  a  state  or  status  of  grace.  There  has  been  given  to 
us  and  received  by  us  a  salvation  not  our  own,  and  yet 
our  own,  not  our  own  in  subjective  fact  but  our  own 
by  objective  divine  right  and  title  which  to  faith  is 
equivalent  to  fact.  Such  is  the  grace  of  the  Word,  the 
grace  of  the  objective  giving  and  the  objective  receiv- 
ing. On  the  other  hand,  the  grace  of  the  Spirit  is  that 
of  a  subjective  both  giving  and  receiving.  It  is  the 
operation  within  us,  ourselves  and  not  ourselves,  by 
which  what  is  de  jure  ours  is  made  de  facto  ours.  The 
point  to  be  remembered  and  kept,  as  distinctive  of  the 
word  grace  and  of  the  thing  expressed  by  it,  is  that  as 
in  the  grace  of  the  Word  there  is  a  gift  not  from  our- 
selves, so  in  the  grace  of  the  Spirit  there  is  a  reception 
not  by  ourselves.  Our  Lord  Himself  makes  much  of 
the  fact  that  it  is  only  God  within  us  that  can  make  us 


The  Resurrection  187 

receptive  of  God  without  us;  no  man  can  come  to  the 
Word  except  he  be  drawn  by  the  Spirit. 

The  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  was  a 
demonstration,  not  only  of  the  human  receptive  and 
responsive  power  of  faith,  but  also  of  the  divine  com- 
municative and  enabling  power  of  grace.  Attention 
was  called  to  the  fact  that  while  our  Lord's  entire  ex- 
perience in  the  flesh  was  a  human  one,  there  was  yet 
that  in  it  which  transcends  all  other  human  experience 
upon  earth.  While  all  other  experiences  can  never 
get  beyond  the  fact  of  still  inhering  sin,  but  the  more 
they  advance  in  holiness  are  only  the  more  conscious 
of  the  sin  that  still  remains,  there  is  ever  in  Jesus  the 
fact  and  the  consciousness  of  having  transcended  any 
experience  of  sin.  The  existence  of  that  fact  is  the 
demonstration  of  the  existence  and  actual  operation  in 
Him  of  the  superhuman  power  by  which  it  was  accom- 
plished. The  victory  of  faith  is  the  victory  in  reality, 
not  of  faith,  but  of  that  which  operates  in  and  through 
faith.  Faith  is  but  the  condition,  grace  is  the  source 
and  the  cause  of  all  in  us  that  is  not  of  ourselves,  and 
consequently  of  all  holiness  or  eternal  life.  Because 
faith  existed  perfectly  in  Jesus  Christ,  therefore  grace 
wrought  through  Him  perfectly.  God  could  accom- 
plish and  did  accomplish  in  Him  His  perfect  work, 
and  that  perfect  work  consisted  in  the  death  that  was 
a  resurrection,  the  resurrection  not  only  actually  of 
humanity  in  Him,  but  potentially  of  humanity  with 
Him.  This  will  bring  us  to  the  third  sense  of  the  death 
and  resurrection. 

Because  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  was  the  completed 


188  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

triumph  of  human  faith  in  God  and  so  of  divine  grace 
in  man,  therefore  it  is  as  to  its  meaning  and  content  the 
consummation  of  all  that  it  is  the  end  of  faith  to  seek 
or  the  function  of  grace  to  impart.  And  so  the  death 
and  resurrection  taken  as  one  is  the  complete  attitude 
toward  evil  which  attains  to  its  putting  away,  and  on 
the  other  hand,  or  as  its  obverse,  the  completed  atti- 
tude toward  God  and  holiness  which  is  the  perfect 
putting  on  and  possession  of  them.  Therefore  it  is 
that  as  our  Lord  had  summed  up  all  in  His  last  word 
and  made  the  fruit  of  His  work  the  substance  of  His 
gift,  so  from  that  moment  what  was  preached  in  His 
name  was  an  accomplished  and  adequate  repentance 
and  a  completed  remission  and  redemption.  Jesus 
Christ  dead  and  risen  is  the  realization  and  manifesta- 
tion at  once  of  the  divine  grace  that  imparts,  the  human 
faith  that  receives  and  assimilates,  and  the  holiness, 
righteousness,  and  life  that  result. 

There  are  one  or  two  New  Testament  passages  by 
which  I  would  illustrate  the  spiritual  interpretation  of 
the  resurrection  given  above.  St.  Paul  opens  the  epistle 
to  the  Romans  with  a  very  exact  definition  of  the  Gospel 
as  he  understands  it.  The  Gospel,  according  to  his 
statement,  is  the  Gospel  of  God,  concerning  His  Son. 
And  then  he  proceeds  to  define  and  describe  the  divine 
sonship  realized  in  Jesus  as  constituting  the  essential 
principle  and  truth  of  the  Gospel.  The  sonship  de- 
scribed is,  as  we  shall  see  clearly,  a  sonship  of  humanity, 
first  attained  by  it  in  His  person,  and  attained  by  a 
process  which  is  traced  out  for  us  with  great  distinct- 
ness.    Jesus   Christ,   according  to  the  flesh,   on  the 


The  Resurrection  189 

natural  side,  in  the  whole  phenomenon  of  what  He  was 
by  virtue  of  His  human  nature,  came  of  the  seed  of 
David.  But  according  to  the  spirit,  or  on  the  spiritual 
side,  in  the  entire  phenomenon  of  His  spiritual  mani- 
festation. He  was  the  son  of  God.  In  His  own  person  as 
man  there  was  necessity  of  the  double  birth,  if  He  was 
to  be  a  member  not  only  of  the  kingdom  of  earth,  but 
of  that  of  heaven.  Now  how  did  He  (humanly)  become 
son  of  God,  or  by  what  process  was  He  so  determined  ? 
Did  he  become  so  by  an  act  of  God-determination,  or 
by  an  act  of  self-determination,  or  by  both  ?  In  so  far 
as  He  was  determined  to  sonsliip  by  the  act  or  opera- 
tion of  the  divine  grace  in  Him,  He  was  God-deter- 
mined. In  so  far  as  He  was  determined  to  it  by  His 
own  act  or  activity  of  faith  in  the  divine  grace,  He  was 
self-determined.  The  determination  to  sonship  is  the 
joint  act  or  operation  of  God  in  man  and  of  man  in  God. 
That  Jesus  Himself  in  His  entireness  of  human  ex- 
perience was  so  determined  to  the  sonship  He  achieved 
for  us  will  be  demonstrated  by  what  follows.  We  may 
only  remark  in  passing  that,  as  spoken  of  in  the  New 
Testament,  human  sonship  to  God  is  not  matter  of 
original  nature  or  of  inherited  nature,  but  of  acquired 
nature.  Indeed  our  entire  spiritual  nature  as  such  is 
necessarily  self-acquired.  It  means  what  we  are  by 
our  own  self-determination,  although  —  as  in  this  case 
—  the  determination  of  ourselves  may  be  dependent 
upon  God's  determination  of  us. 

Jesus  Christ,  St.  Paul  goes  on  to  say,  was  determined 
Son  of  God  —  in  what  respect  ?  What  was  it  that  the 
perfect  grace  of  God  through  His  perfect  faith  as  man 


190  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

added  to  Him  to  complete  and  constitute  His  human 
sonship  ?  It  was  just  that  which  humanity  lacked 
and  needed  in  itself  in  order  to  become  sons  —  the 
power  to  become.  In  order  to  become  sons  of  God  it 
was  necessary  for  men  to  throw  oflF  what  in  themselves 
was  alien  to  the  divine  nature,  and  to  receive  from 
without  themselves  what  was  necessary  to  kinship 
with  it.  This  could  be  accomplished  only  by  an  ade- 
quate metanoia  and  a  suflficient  faith.  And  that  was 
just  what  the  last  representative  of  law  or  prophets  had 
testified  to  human  incapacity  for,  without  a  new  baptism 
with  spirit  and  power  from  above.  Jesus  Christ  was 
humanity  just  so  baptized;  and  in  consequence  of  that 
baptism  He  was  Son  of  God  with  power. 

That  the  above  is  the  true  definition  of  the  power 
with  which  Jesus  was  determined  and  constituted  Son 
of  God  is  proved  by  the  following  words:  Determined 
Son  of  God  with  power,  according  to  the  spirit  of  holi- 
ness. The  power  was  distinctly  a  spiritual  one,  and 
it  manifested  itself  in  an  accomplished  sinlessness  or 
holiness.  According  to  the  spirit  may  mean  the  human 
spirit,  as  St.  Paul  especially  contradistinguishes  in  us 
the  spirit  from  the  flesh.  The  flesh  is  all  that  we  are 
by  nature  or  of  ourselves,  the  spirit  is  what  we  are  by 
relation  with  God  and  personal  communication  from 
Him.  Or  the  spirit  may  mean  the  Spirit  of  God  as 
manifested  in  our  spirit.  It  really  means  both,  because 
it  is  only  in  our  spirit,  that  is,  in  what  we  are,  thai  the 
Spirit  of  God  can  manifest  Himself  in  us,  and  equally 
our  spirit  is  dead  for  holiness  without  the  Spirit  of  God. 
It  is  only  as  the  human  and  the  divine  are  at  one  and 


The  Resurrection  191 

are  one  that  we  can  be  possessors  of  that  holiness  which 
is  the  divine  nature  and  which  constitutes  us  sons  of 
God.  It  is  impossible,  I  think,  to  read  even  the  Gos- 
pel of  St.  John  without  perceiving  that  Jesus  dwells 
in  the  main  upon  His  human  relation  to  the  Father, 
upon  the  sonship  into  which  He  has  come  by  the  per- 
fection of  His  attitude  toward  God  in  recognition  of 
and  response  to  that  of  God  toward  Him.  And  in- 
deed it  cannot  but  be  so,  because  He  can  be  light  or 
life,  or  way  of  life,  to  us  only  in  what  He  as  we  became, 
and  we  in  Him  may  become. 

The  important  point  for  our  argument  remains  to 
be  noticed.  All  the  divine  determination  and  self- 
determination  of  Jesus  Christ  as  son,  with  power,  ac- 
cording to  the  spirit  of  holiness,  is  the  outcome  of  His 
resurrection  from  the  dead.  He  was,  as  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  describes  Him,  Son  perfected  forever- 
more  —  by  the  things  He  had  suffered  and  done. 
Humanity  became  son  of  God  by  His  act  and  in  His 
person.  He  was  that  death  to  sin  and  life  to  God,  by 
which  old  things  passed  away  and  new  things  came 
into  being,  by  which  humanity  was  bom  through  death 
into  life.  The  Thou  art  my  Son,  this  day  have  I  be- 
gotten thee,  refers  for  Jesus  not  to  the  day  of  His  human 
birth,  but  to  the  day  of  His  resurrection.  The  sonship 
created  and  manifested  by  and  in  Him  was  not  mere 
fact  of  the  former,  but  was  the  perfect  act  of  the  latter. 
It  was  not  on  Christmas  Day  but  on  Easter  that  He 
was  bom,  for  whom  we  remember  no  more  the  pangs 
of  His  birth  for  joy  that  a  man  is  born  into  the  world. 


192  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

For  that  man  is  the  new  humanity,  and  in  His  birth 
we  all  were  bom  sons  of  God. 

I  will  adventure  one  more  illustration  from  the  New 
Testament  of  the  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  our  Lord.  St.  John  in  the  last 
chapter  of  his  first  epistle  is  speaking  of  the  faith  that 
overcomes  the  world,  and  he  gives  a  specific  definition 
of  that  faith  in  the  words,  Who  is  he  that  overcometh 
the  world  but  he  that  believeth  that  Jesus  is  the  son 
of  God  ?  Our  Lord  in  His  latest  words,  according  to 
St.  John,  had  comforted  His  disciples  with  the  assur- 
ance. In  the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation,  but  be  of 
good  cheer,  I  have  overcome  the  world.  It  is  implied 
that  His  victory  is  theirs,  and  that  in  Him  they  too 
should  overcome.  Accordingly,  to  St.  John  in  the 
epistle  faith  not  merely  in  the  word  of  Jesus  but  in  the 
accomplished  fact  of  His  victory  over  the  world  is  our 
victory  over  the  world.  But  what  is  that  victory  ?  It 
consists  in  the  act  and  fact  of  attained  or  accomplished 
son  ship  to  God.  We  can  overcome  the  world  only  by 
being  no  longer  of  the  world  but  of  God.  He  that 
believes  in  the  sonship  of  Jesus  believes  in  his  own 
sonship  in  Jesus,  and  in  realizing  that  sonship  in  faith 
realizes  it  in  fact,  and  so  overcomes  the  world.  St. 
John  proceeds  then  to  give  the  genesis  of  human  son- 
ship  to  God  as  it  had  been  realized  in  the  person  of 
Jesus  Christ  Himself:  This  is  he  that  came  by  water 
and  blood,  even  Jesus  Christ;  not  in  the  water  only, 
but  in  the  water  and  in  the  blood.  And  it  is  the 
Spirit  that  beareth  witness,  because  the  Spirit  is  the 
truth.      For  there  are  three  who  bear  witness,  the  Spirit 


The  Resurrection  193 

and  the  water  and  the  blood;  and  these  three  agree 
in  one. 

This  account  of  the  three  witnesses  has  baffled  all 
effort  at  conclusive  interpretation,  but  we  may  reflect 
profitably  upon  some  points  in  it.  When  or  how  or  in 
what  respect  can  Jesus  be  said  to  have  come  by  water 
and  blood  ?  Surely  not  as  to  Himself,  in  either  the 
divine  or  the  human  aspect  of  Him.  The  context 
shows  that  this  coming  is  in  the  character  and  capacity 
of  human  sonship  to  God :  Who  is  he  that  overcometh, 
but  he  that  believeth  that  Jesus  is  the  son  of  God  ? 
This  is  he  that  came.  ...  It  is  the  realized  human 
sonship  that  came  in  the  water  and  in  the  blood.  There 
is  some  doubt  as  to  what  may  be  meant  by  the  water; 
there  can  be  none  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  blood.  It 
is  most  probable  that  St.  John,  having  reference  to  the 
gradual  perfecting  and  completion  of  our  Lord's 
human  relationship  to  the  Father,  specifies  the  two 
salient  and  critical  points  of  that  process,  the  baptism 
and  the  crucifixion.  Without  prejudice  to  other  senses 
of  a  previous  or  already  existing  sonship,  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  we  may  say  that  Jesus  was  son  of  God 
by  baptism.  Baptism  means  the  act  of  being  bom 
from  above  which  constitutes  our  sonship  to  God. 
The  true  and  complete  act  in  which  human  regenera- 
tion was  first  realized  was  the  anointing  or  baptism  from 
heaven  which  made  Jesus  the  Christ.  At  the  baptism 
of  Jesus  the  heavens  were  opened  and  the  voice  of  God 
pronounced  Him  the  beloved  son  in  whom  He  was 
well  pleased.  In  whatever  sense  Jesus  in  His  humanity 
may  or  may  not  have  been  "  made  "  son  of  God  by  His 


194  The  Gospel  of  the  Work 

baptism,  it  is  certain  that  in  that  act  He  received  most 
direct  testimony  or  witness  from  God  to  the  fact  and 
character  or  quality  of  His  sonship;  and  we  must  re- 
member that  in  the  passage  before  us  St.  John  is  speak- 
ing of  the  water,  the  blood,  and  the  Spirit  as  not  only 
the  three  media,  but  the  three  witnesses  of  the  coming 
of  the  son  of  God.  Not  in  the  water  only,  says  the 
Apostle.  The  coming  in  the  water  of  baptism  is  only 
an  initial  coming;  it  is  the  act  of  self-devotion,  and  of 
the  divine  consecration  or  anointing  with  which  our 
sonship  begins.  It  is  the  putting  on  of  the  armor, 
between  which  and  the  putting  it  off  there  is  no  little  to 
be  done.  The  baptism  of  Jesus  was  no  meaningless 
form  or  unreality  to  Him.  It  drove  Him  into  the  wil- 
derness to  prepare  through  agony  of  temptation  for 
what  He  had  taken  upon  Himself  or  what  God  had  put 
upon  Him.  He  undertook  in  water  what  He  was  to 
execute  in  blood.  Jesus  Himself  always  connected  by 
the  common  term  the  two  baptisms  of  water  and  of 
blood,  and  so  saw  the  fulfilment  of  the  former  in  the 
execution  of  the  latter.  So  every  baptism  in  His  name 
begins  in  water,  but  is  completed  only  in  the  blood  of 
the  perfect  death  to  sin.  This  then  is  He  who,  as  author 
and  completer  of  our  regeneration  or  divine  sonship, 
of  our  death  into  life  and  life  out  of  death,  came  not 
only  in  the  consecration  to  sonship  in  the  water  of 
Jordan,  but  in  the  realization  of  sonship  through  the 
blood  of  Calvary.  But  the  water  or  the  blood  was 
neither  in  itself,  nor  both  together,  sufficient  witness. 
It  is  the  Spirit  in  both  that  is  the  truth,  that  constitutes 
the  reality.     It  is  not  our  baptism,  but  what  our  bap- 


The  Resurrection  195 

tism  is  to  us  and  in  us,  that  is  the  truth  or  the  reality 
of  it.  And  it  was  not  the  blood  as  such  of  even  the 
death  on  Calvary;  it  was  the  blood  as  symbol  and 
actual  expression  of  the  Eternal  Spirit  in  which  and 
through  which  the  life  was  offered  up  without  spot  to 
God.  It  was  the  eternal  spirit  of  it  all  that  made  that 
particular  crucifixion  what  it  was,  that  converted  that 
particular  death  into  a  resurrection  unto  eternal  life. 
So,  all  uniting  in  and  taken  together  as  one,  they  make 
up  God's  triple  witness  concerning  His  Son.  And 
that  witness  is  this,  that  God  gave  unto  us  eternal  life, 
and  this  life  is  in  His  Son.  He  that  hath  the  Son  hath 
the  life. 

As  the  sonship  was  a  resurrection  sonship,  so  the 
life  is  distinctively  a  resurrection  life.  It  looks  back 
to,  it  is  conditioned  upon,  it  rests  on,  the  truth  of  the 
initial  water  and  the  consummating  blood.  That  is 
to  say,  it  must  have  begun  with  a  whole-minded  and 
whole-hearted  act  of  self-consecration  to  God,  involv- 
ing a  repentance  unto  the  putting  away  of  sin  and  a 
faith  that  means  and  that  will  be  holiness ;  our  life  must 
accept  and  intend  all  that  was  accomplished  in  that  of 
our  Lord,  and  that  is  expressed  in  His  death  and  resur- 
rection. And  what  was  meant  in  the  water  must  be 
consummated  and  realized  in  the  blood.  We  must 
in  the  end  have  ourselves  in  the  perfection  of  our  re- 
pentance died  to  sin  and  in  the  perfection  of  our  faith 
risen  into  life.  The  completed  transition  from  death 
into  life  can  to  any  profit  have  taken  place  in  another 
for  us  only  as  by  baptism  with  His  spirit  it  can  be 
effectuated  in  ourselves  in  Him. 


PART  THIRD 
THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  PERSON 

OR 

THE  INCARNATION 


XVI 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  PERSON 

An  adequate  interpretation  of  the  work  of  Jesus 
Christ  cannot  but  involve  and  raise  a  question  as  to  His 
personality.  We  have  either  to  lower  our  conception 
of  the  work  or  else  to  elevate  the  matter  of  His  person 
to  the  height  of  an  unavoidable  and  all-important 
problem.  We  have  summed  up  the  catholic  or  prac- 
tically universal  interpretation  of  the  work  in  the  one 
word  —  the  resurrection.  But  to  that  word  we  have 
attributed  a  far  wider  signification  than  is  apparent  to 
any  one  who  does  not  see  it  through  the  whole  mind  of 
the  New  Testament.  It  is  true  that  we  profess  here 
to  be  interpreting  only  the  Gospels,  but  it  would  be 
absurd,  in  doing  so,  to  limit  our  attention  so  exclusively 
to  the  Gospels  themselves  as  to  ignore  the  way  in  which 
they  were  understood  by  the  Christian  mind  of  the 
time.  Our  only  concern  must  be  to  interpret  the  Gos- 
pels themselves  as  exactly  and  correctly  as  we  can,  and 
if  in  this  we  are  assisted  to  the  truth  by  the  mind  of 
St.  Paul,  for  example,  so  much  the  greater  gain.  The 
only  thing  to  be  guarded  against  is  the  possibility,  in 
that  case,  of  importing  from  St.  Paul  or  any  other 
extraneous  source  an  interpretation  which  is  not  at 
least  implicitly  the  meaning  or  truth  of  the  Gospels. 

199 


200  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

If  it  is  the  truth,  it  is  so  much  the  better  that  it  is  also 
the  mind  of  St.  Paul. 

The  resurrection,  then,  means  to  us  so  infinitely 
more  than  the  physical  or  physiological  puzzle  of  the 
resuscitation  of  a  dead  person,  that  the  acknowledged 
and  perhaps  insoluble  difficulties  involved  in  that  prac- 
tically do  not  disturb  one  who  appreciates  and  measures 
the  spiritual  significance  and  necessity  of  the  fact. 
Christianity  has  permitted  itself  to  be  so  mixed  up  with 
and  embarrassed  by  the  natural  aspects  of  the  case, 
that  it  has  weakened  its  grasp  upon  the  true  fulness 
and  incontestability  of  the  spiritual  truth  and  proof  of 
the  resurrection.  For  my  part,  and  I  think  in  the 
interest  of  spiritual  rather  than  of  physical  science  — 
though  I  believe  them  to  be  one  —  I  fully  share  the 
current  prejudice  against  mere  miracle  (at  any  rate  as 
we  have  been  understanding  it)  as  explanation  for  any 
phenomenon.  I  should  very  much  prefer  to  believe 
that  in  what  we  call  the  miracles  of  our  Lord,  and 
especially  in  the  momentous  fact  of  the  resurrection, 
there  is  manifested  some  higher  natural  working  than 
we  have  as  yet  been  able  to  correlate  with  what  we  so 
far  know  of  nature.  I  am  loath  to  believe  that  what  I 
consider  the  most  significant,  beneficent,  and  inter- 
pretative event  in  creation  should  have  been  inter- 
jected into  it  as  an  interference  or  amendment.  But 
at  any  rate  Christianity,  I  think,  can  afford  to  leave 
to  a  lower  science  what  of  puzzle  there  is  in  reconciliflg 
the  differing  and  often  seemingly  conflicting  spheres 
of  the  spiritual  and  the  physical  in  human  experience. 
The  problem,   for  example,   of  the  reconciliation  of 


The  Problem  of  the  Person  201 

personal  freedom  and  natural  causation  will  probably 
never  be  solved,  and  yet  the  facts  will  forever  continue. 
What  then,  let  us  recall,  is  the  fuller  significance  of 
the  resurrection  ?  As  the  death  of  Jesus,  in  its  spiritual 
aspect,  was  not  the  fact  of  a  moment  but  the  act  of  a 
lifetime,  as  the  cross  went  with  Him  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave,  and  through  every  minute  of  every  day 
—  as  also,  He  said,  it  should  accompany  us,  —  so  also 
was  the  resurrection  of  our  Lord  a  continuous  and 
unbroken  act  and  fact  of  His  whole  life.  It  was  a 
consistent  breaking  through  or  transcending  the  limi- 
tations that  bind  "  all  us  the  rest "  in  the  universal  sub- 
jection to  sin  and  death.  The  work  of  Jesus  was  the 
fact  of  His  holiness,  and  every  moment  of  His  holiness 
was  an  act  of  resurrection,  inasmuch  as  it  was  a  raising 
our  common  nature  out  of  and  above  its  natural  state 
or  activity.  The  death  habitually  spoken  of  in  the 
New  Testament,  at  any  rate  in  its  higher  teachings,  is 
not  a  physical  event.  It  may  and  does  involve  that 
too,  sooner  or  later,  but  even  physical  death,  strictly  as 
such,  always  presupposes  an  interior  spiritual  death. 
Not,  I  think,  that  even  St.  Paul  believes  that  but  for 
the  entrance  of  sin  there  would  not  have  been  the 
natural  change  of  death;  only  that  that  natural  change 
would  not  without  sin  have  been  the  dark  thing  we  now, 
in  consequence  of  sin,  know  as  death.  Rather  would 
it  have  been  a  change  and  an  awakening,  a  second 
birth  into  a  higher  life.  Sin  is  not  the  cause  of  death 
as  a  natural  change,  it  only  makes  it  death  in  the  un- 
natural evil  and  dread  of  it.  So  it  is  only  the  sting  and 
curse  of  death.     Extract  the  sting,  remove  the  curse, 


202  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

and  death  ceases  to  be  death  in  its  bad  sense,  and 
becomes  only  a  release  and  rest  from  the  sorrows  of 
this  world  and  a  blessed  entrance  upon  the  activities 
and  joys  of  another.  And  that  other  is  not  a  future 
world  only,  but  an  ever  present  one.  It  is  the  kingdom 
of  God  or  kingdom  of  heaven  which  was  established 
in  this  world  by  our  Lord's  life  work  in  it.  It  is  the 
kingdom  of  which  He  Himself  said  that  no  one  could 
see  it  or  enter  into  it  except  by  a  new  birth  from  above, 
a  birth  which  is  potentially  the  whole  of  the  death  to 
sin  and  the  resurrection  to  holiness  and  God.  All 
transference  or  translation  of  us  from  the  kingdom  of 
nature  and  ourselves  into  that  of  God  or  of  heaven, 
all  the  life  of  grace  in  us  enabling  us  to  be  that  which 
by  nature  or  ourselves  we  could  not  be,  is  the  result  of 
a  new  birth  which  is  in  effect  a  death  and  a  resurrection. 
Jesus  Christ  accomplished  the  kingdom  of  God  when 
humanity  in  His  person  destroyed  and  left  behind  it 
the  whole  long  dominion  and  supremacy  of  sin.  In 
the  destruction  of  that  great  first  enemy,  the  last  enemy 
too  was  practically  destroyed.  He  who  had  overcome 
sin  could  not  be  holden  of  death.  The  resurrection 
to  holiness  through  the  breaking  of  the  power  of  sin 
was  the  forerunner  and  condition  of  the  resurrection 
to  life  through  the  breaking  the  bands  of  death. 

I  do  not  see  how  the  supreme  spiritual  fact  of  the 
resurrection  in  the  totality  of  its  meaning  could  have 
been  given  to  the  world  otherwise  than  by  the  palpable 
and  vivid  testimony  of  His  physical  reappearance  after 
death,  any  more  than  I  can  see  how  His  divine  author- 
ity and  power  to  save  could  have  been  impressed  upon 


The  Problem  of  the  Person  203 

the  faith  of  the  world  otherwise  than  by  the  evidence 
of  what  might  without  irreverence  be  called  the  ma- 
chinery of  His  miraculous  bodily  healings.  Yet  in 
these  latter  we  are  obliged  to  distinguish  between  what 
was  accidental  and  temporary  and  exceptional  and 
what  was  essential,  permanent,  and  universal.  We 
know  very  well  now  what  this  latter  consists  in:  Jesus 
Christ  is  in  the  world  with  authority  and  power  to  put 
away  sin  and  death  and  to  communicate  holiness  and 
eternal  life.  Tliis  is  the  ergon  which  the  Father  sent 
Him  into  the  world  to  accomplish,  and  the  perpetual 
actual  accomplishing  of  which  was  to  be  His  divine 
credential.  Now,  no  one  can  say  that  the  bringing  of 
dead  men  back  to  physical  or  natural  life  again,  or 
even  of  sick  men  to  physical  health  again  by  other  than 
natural  means,  is  any  part  of  the  essential,  permanent, 
and  universal  health  and  life  giving  work  of  Christ. 
Whatever  necessary  purpose  those  miracles  served  was 
an  occasional,  temporary,  and  non-essential  one  and 
ought  not  to  be  included  in  the  permanent  operation 
of  our  religion.  Just  so  have  we  to  recognize  in  the 
particular  and  probative  resurrection  of  Jesus  Himself 
elements  and  circumstances  that  were  exceptional  and 
that  are  no  permanent  part  of  that  resurrection  of  hu- 
manity of  which  He  was  first-fruit  and  author.  It  is  a 
part  of  that  general  truth  enunciated  by  Irenseus  when 
he  says  that  our  Lord  in  se  recapitulat  longam  exposi- 
tionem  hominis.  The  whole  process  of  death  and 
resurrection,  of  regeneration,  and  of  eternal  life  in- 
stituted and  inaugurated  by  Jesus  Christ  is  in  the  higher 
and  the  highest  sense  a  natural  one.     It  includes  not 


204  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

only  the  beginnings  of  spiritual  life  here,  but  the  com- 
pletion of  physical  or  natural  life  hereafter.  But  the 
birth  and  transition  and  transformation  from  the  nat- 
ural which  we  know  to  the  spiritual  or  higher-natural 
which  as  yet,  in  what  it  shall  be,  we  do  not  know,  we 
yet  do  know  this  much  about,  that  it  is  as  natural  as 
any  other  of  the  changes  by  which  all  life  in  the  crea- 
tion of  God  passes  from  stage  to  stage  and  from  glory 
to  glor}\  Now  the  human  transitions  of  Jesus,  the 
changes  undergone  or  accomplished  by  humanity  in 
His  person,  as  from  sin  to  holiness  and  from  death  to 
life,  or  more  exactly  from  subjection  to  the  law  of  sin 
and  death  to  the  freedom  and  life  of  holiness,  or  of  the 
sons  of  God,  —  these  transitions  in  Him  are  not  sub- 
ject to  the  conditions  and  laws  of  change  in  the  same 
way  as  in  us.  They  are  marked  by  features  which  are 
exceptional  in  His  case.  I  have  already  called  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  whereas  in  our  ordinary  experience 
no  one  attains  to  a  higher  approximation  to  the  divine 
nature  or  holiness  than  is  marked  by  a  more  sensitive 
consciousness  of  still  inhering  difference  or  sin,  Jesus 
as  the  great  exception  transcends  that  experience  and 
attains  here  on  earth  a  perfect  oneness  with  the  Father, 
the  limit  and  goal  of  accomplished  sonship.  And  so 
here  again,  whereas  all  we  the  rest,  in  our  passage 
through  the  grave  and  gate  of  death  into  the  fulness  of 
the  completed  life,  have  to  pass  through  we  know  not 
what  necessary  and  universal  process  of  natural  trans- 
formation, Jesus  within  three,  or  forty,  days  has  ac- 
complished the  entire  process  and  is  elevated  in  His 
humanity   to   the   complete  life   of  finished   sonship. 


The  Problem  of  the  Person  205 

What  I  have  to  say  about  this  at  present  is  not  in  the 
way  of,  perhaps  for  us  impossible,  explanation.  It 
is  only  to  suggest  that  there  are  two  aspects  and  modes 
of  treatment  of  the  unique  or  the  exceptional  in  the 
human  experience  of  Jesus.  There  is  on  the  one  hand 
a  physical  exceptional  and  on  the  other  a  spiritual 
exceptional.  With  regard  to  the  former,  the  difficulty 
is  a  natural  and  therefore  a  scientific  one.  The  only 
question  for  religion  is  whether  we  shall  permit  the 
overwhelming  spiritual  probability  with  which  through 
all  the  life  of  Jesus  we  have  come  at  last  to  the  neces- 
sity of  His  resurrection  to  be  met  and  overcome  by  the 
physical  impossibility  or  improbability  which  it  seems 
to  us,  in  our  ignorance,  to  involve.  If  our  faith  and 
our  spiritual  appreciation  of  the  invisible  all-impor- 
tant and  all-inclusive  truth  be  as  great  as,  I  think,  its 
object  requires  and  justifies,  then  I  think  we  shall  be 
able  to  pass  by  the  natural  and  scientific  difficulties  as 
exceptional,  and  —  so  far  at  least  as  our  own  interest 
or  part  in  the  resurrection  is  concerned  —  non-essen- 
tial. Certainly  in  our  present  effort  to  express  what 
the  Gospel  professes  to  be,  and  what  we  find  it  to  be, 
to  us,  we  may  excuse  ourselves  from  the  parergon,  or 
side  issue,  of  reconciling  the  facts  of  the  spirit  with 
those  of  matter. 

The  spiritual  uniqueness  or  exceptionality  in  the 
case  of  Jesus  we  cannot  so  pass  by.  It  is  as  much  a 
miracle  in  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual  as  the  other  is  in 
that  of  the  natural.  The  attempt  to  explain  it,  which 
Christianity  can  in  no  way  evade  or  avoid,  is  only  an 
effort  to  so  account  for  it  as  to  divest  it  of  the  feature 


206  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

of  miracle  in  the  objectionable  sense.  When  our  Lord 
set  up  claims  that  were  offensive  to  His  adversaries 
among  the  Jews,  it  was  quite  legitimate  for  them  to 
raise  the  point,  Who  art  thou,  or  WTiom  makest  thou 
thyself,  that  thou  makest  such  claims  ?  If  our  Lord 
did  exceptional  things,  then  He  was  an  exceptional 
person.  And  what  He  did  cannot  but  raise  the  ques- 
tion of  who  He  was. 

Moreover,  the  question  of  who  Jesus  was  very 
easily  resolves  itself  into  the  other,  what  was  His  rela- 
tion to  God  ?  And  since  that  relationship  always 
expresses  itself  in  terms  of  His  divine  sonship,  we  shall, 
in  investigating  it,  be  involved  once  more  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  that  sonship,  —  but  this  time  from  a  higher 
point  of  view  than  before. 

In  this  higher  aspect  of  the  divine  sonship  of  Jesus 
there  are  two  lines  of  inquiry.  In  the  first  place,  what 
are  the  considerations  that  force  the  conclusion,  and 
what  are  the  grounds  upon  which  the  conclusion  rests  ? 
And  in  the  second  place,  what  is  the  conclusion  itself 
or  the  elements  of  truth  that  enter  into  it?  With 
regard  to  the  first  it  is  necessary  to  remember  this 
important  fact  of  human  knowledge,  that  the  most 
essential  conclusions  of  the  human  mind  are  much 
wiser  and  stronger  than  the  arguments  by  which  they 
are  supported.  Such  persistent  beliefs  as  that  in  God, 
or  in  freedom  or  immortality,  are  not  believed  because 
they  have  been  or  can  be  proved ;  they  are  forever  seek- 
ing to  be  proved  because  they  are  believed.  The  proofs 
may  be  worthless  and  are  always  changing,  but  the 
beliefs  persist.     The  necessity  for  believing  in  a  higher 


The  Problem  of  the  Person  207 

nature  or  a  higher  personality  in  Jesus  Christ  is  a 
much  deeper  and  a  much  truer  one  than  is  or  can  be 
drawn  from  particular  statements  to  that  effect  either 
on  the  part  of  our  Lord  Himself  or  of  His  biographers 
or  interpreters.  The  fact  is  that  Jesus  was  first  more 
than  man  to  His  disciples,  and  they  then  sustained  that 
faith  by  corroborative  facts  and  statements.  And  so 
I  would  rest  my  statement  of  the  higher  being  of  our 
Lord  not  upon  proof  texts  or  passages,  nor  upon  old 
arguments  drawn  from  these,  but  upon  the  general  fact 
of  the  whole  manifestation  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  of  the 
whole  impression  left  by  Him  upon  the  world.  Leaving 
aside  all  question  of  physical  miracles,  and  even  of  the 
physically  miraculous  in  the  central  and  essential  fact 
of  the  resurrection,  and  limiting  ourselves  to  the  spiritual 
phenomenon  of  what  He  was  as  man  in  His  accom- 
plished holiness  and  His  perfected  life,  of  what  He  is  in 
the  faith  and  the  life  of  all  who  truly  know  Him,  I  say 
that  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Jesus  Christ  is  more  and  greater 
than  any  individual  son  of  man,  or  than  any  such  could 
or  can  by  any  special  privilege  or  opportunity  become. 
Jesus  Christ  is  one  of  those  essential  truths  that  are  too 
great  to  be  proved,  like  God  or  freedom  or  immortality. 
Such  truths  are  their  own  best  if  not  only  proofs.  Let 
a  man,  or  a  time,  or  the  world,  or  the  church,  prove 
them  in  life  and  experience  and  they  shall  know  them  ; 
but  apart  from  actual  and  adequate  life  and  experience 
they  can  never  be  logically  or  speculatively  demon- 
strated. Let  the  world,  or  let  the  Church  again  as  at 
the  beginning,  take  in  the  full  impression  of  the  fulness 
of  the  truth  that  was  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ;  let  it 


208  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

see  all  humanity  and  all  deity  concerned  in  His  person 
in  the  question  and  decision  of  human  life  and  destiny; 
let  it  know  Him  now  in  the  universality  and  the  effec- 
tuality of  His  personal  relation  to  every  human  soul  in 
time  or  space,  —  and  it  will  feel  for  itself  the  considera- 
tions that  force  it  to  the  conclusion  of  a  higher  being 
in  our  Lord,  and  the  grounds  upon  which  it  has  not 
been  able  to  resist  the  necessity  of  constructing  for 
itself  some  theory  of  such  a  higher  being.  The  con- 
viction of  such  a  higher  being  operative  and  determi- 
native in  the  phenomenon  of  the  higher  humanity  of 
Jesus  in  no  way  militates  against  the  reality  and  in- 
tegrity of  that  humanity.  The  thing  to  be  explained 
v\  in  Jesus  is  not  something  beside  or  outside  of  His  true 
humanity,  but  the  perfection  of  the  power  of  that 
humanity  to  realize  or  fulfil  itself;  and  not  only  to  fulfil 
itself,  but  to  be  the  principle  and  power  of  all  other 
humanity  to  fulfil  itself. 

As  to  the  form  which  we  must  give  to  our  conviction 
of  the  higher  being  of  our  Lord,  or  the  separate  ele- 
ments of  truth  which  we  must  include  in  our  faith  in  it, 
I  may  suggest  several  successive  steps  which  we  must 
take,  and  upon  one  or  other  of  which  we  are  liable  to 
stop,  in  our  progress  to  the  complete  truth.  In  the 
first  place,  the  higher  reach  and  manifestation  of  hu- 
manity in  the  person  of  Jesus  might  be  due  to  excep- 
tional and  perfect  relations  into  which  God  elected  to 
enter  with  that  particular  man,  in  whom  God  would 
demonstrate  to  all  the  perfection  of  the  accomplished 
relation  into  which  all  are  predestinated  to  enter  with 
Him.     No  one  can  doubt  the  large  amount  of  truth 


The  Problem  of  the  Person  209 

already  expressed  in  that  view.  The  question  is 
whether  we  can  stop  there,  or  whether  the  phenom- 
enon to  be  explained  is  exhausted  by  that  interpreta- 
tion of  it.  We  shall  have  to  give  that  matter  our  fuller 
attention  in  another  chapter. 

In  the  second  place,  we  may  attribute  to  our  Lord  a 
higher  than  natural  origin  in  human  history,  and  con- 
sequently a  higher  than  human  nature  or  than  ordinary 
human  life  in  it,  and  yet  not  hold  the  fact  or  the  neces- 
sity of  any  personal  pre-existence  on  His  part.  He  may 
have  personally  originated  or  come  into  being  at  His 
human  birth,  as  we  do,  and  yet  not  by  ordinary  human 
but  by  exceptional  and  supernatural  divine  generation. 
In  that  case  He  would  have  been  never  a  divine  person 
alone  and  never  a  human  person  alone,  but  only  and 
from  the  moment  of  His  birth  a  divine-human  person, 
a  person  whose  conception  or  motherhood  was  of 
humanity  but  whose  generation  or  fatherhood  was 
of  God. 

Or,  in  the  third  place,  we  may  think  out  these  partial 
explanations  to  the  discovery  of  their  inconclusiveness, 
and  so  come  with  the  Church  to  recognize  in  our  Lord 
a  fuller  truth  of  the  personal  incarnation  of  God  than 
is  contained  in  any  half-way  theory  of  it. 


XVII 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  THE  BIRTH 

If  we  should  arrange  the  subject-matter  of  the  Gos- 
pels in  the  order,  not  so  much  of  the  inherent  relative 
importance  of  the  different  parts  or  topics,  as  of  their 
actual  influence  in  the  production  of  these  records,  it 
would  probably  run  as  follows:  (1)  The  death  and 
resurrection.  Without  these,  it  is  a  great  question 
how  much  of  either  Gospels  or  Gospel  there  would 
have  been  at  all.  There  is  no  doubt  that  these  are  the 
content  that  mainly  determined  both,  as  they  are. 
(2)  The  report  of  the  public  ministry.  However 
incomplete  and  undecisive  this  would  have  been  with- 
out the  death  and  resurrection,  these  too  would  bfe 
meaningless  except  as  the  natural  sequence  and  logical 
consequence  of  the  life,  the  teaching  and  acts,  that  had 
gone  before.  (3)  The  baptism  and  its  attendant  cir- 
cumstances. The  manifest  though  somewhat  implicit 
purpose  of  this  part  of  the  story  is  to  account  for  and 
explain  the  spiritual  endowment  with  which  Jesus 
entered  upon  and  discharged  His  ministry,  the  divine 
authority  and  power  that  manifestly  attended  His 
words  and  acts.  (4)  Latest  of  all  arose  the  question 
of  the  point  which  even  though  first  in  reality  would 
naturally  come  last  in  apprehension  or  investigation. 

210 


The  Mystery  of  the  Birth  211 

While  the  order  of  things  in  themselves  is  always  for- 
ward, the  order  of  thought  about  things  is  backward, 
so  that  our  last  knowledge  is  that  of  adequate  or  suffi- 
cient causes.  So  Christianity  may  have  rested  for  a 
moment  upon  the  spiritual  endowment  of  Jesus,  as 
covered  by  His  baptism  or  anointing  with  the  Holy 
Ghost  from  heaven.  But  not  for  long;  the  explana- 
tion was  inadequate;  it  was  impossible  to  see  in  Jesus 
only  a  man  approved  of  God  by  mighty  works  and 
wonders  and  signs.  The  deeper  question  of  His  per- 
son could  not  but  follow  after  the  others  and  gradually 
work  its  way  to  the  front.  As  the  record  of  the  life  had 
found  it  necessary  to  find  a  starting  point  for  the  min- 
istry in  the  acts  and  facts  of  the  baptism,  so  it  was  not 
long  in  going  back,  behind  St.  Mark  for  example,  to 
find  a  yet  earlier  beginning  for  itself  in  the  account  of 
the  birth.  St.  John,  we  shall  see,  finds  it  necessary  to 
go  yet  further  back  into  the  origin  of  things  for  sufli- 
cient  antecedent  and  cause  of  the  Gospel. 

It  says  nothing  against  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy  as 
a  direct  naive  record  of  facts,  to  recognize  a  more  or 
less  conscious  or  unconscious  reason  or  motive  for  its 
introduction.  It  answered  the  immediate  direct  pur- 
pose of  denying  the  human  paternity  of  Jesus,  and 
affirming  for  Him  a  divine  paternity.  When  we  speak, 
as  we  shall,  of  the  motive  or  purpose  in  this,  it  is  un- 
necessary to  think  of  an  explicit  conscious  intention 
on  the  part  of  the  writers  or  of  the  Church.  The 
truth  shapes  itself  instinctively  in  the  mind  and  ex- 
pression of  men,  so  that  we  often  do  not  know  why  or 
how  we  say  the  things  that  are  truest.     There  is  no 


212  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

part  of  the  Gospels  that  has  quite  the  poetic  elevation 
of  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  And  yet  what,  at  the 
last,  one  is  most  impressed  with  is  its  spiritual  truth; 
if  there  is  not  the  true  instinct  of  the  spirit  there,  in 
thought  and  language,  it  is  nowhere  to  be  found. 
Now,  what  instinct  of  truth  was  it  that  in  this  effective 
way  shaped  the  faith  of  the  Gospel  to  the  affirmation 
of  not  a  human  but  a  divine  paternity  of  our  Lord  ? 
I  venture  to  say,  that  at  any  living  point  or  period  of 
Christianity  the  Christian  consciousness  concerning 
Jesus  Christ  would  instinctively  and  necessarily  have 
come  to  the  practical  conclusion  embodied  in  the  art- 
less and  poetical  stories  of  the  birth  and  infancy  of 
Jesus.  The  profound  speculative  question  really  though 
invisibly  at  issue  in  and  decided  by  them  is  this :  Who 
and  What  is  Jesus  Christ,  in  His  real  and  essential  per- 
sonality ?  The  answer  which  this  artless,  and  yet  most 
profoundly  artful,  so-called  nursery  myth  forestalls  and 
excludes  is  this.  He  was  no  mere  natural  offspring  of 
Joseph  and  Mary.  Why  not  ?  Because  the  product  of 
every  such  natural  union  is  an  individual  human  person. 
Viewing  Jesus  Christ  in  that  light  it  is  impossible  to 
construe  Him  otherwise  than  as  a  human  individual, 
exceptionally  favored  by  unique  relations  with  God. 
The  question  for  the  Church  then,  as  for  the  Church 
now  or  at  any  time,  is.  Can  we,  in  the  light  of  all  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  to  the  Church  and  to  humanity,  His 
universality,  sufficiency,  and  ubiquity,  can  we,  I  say, 
be  fully  and  finally  satisfied  to  see  in  Him  only  one  of 
the  sons  of  men  peculiarly  favored  and  most  highly 
endowed  ?    I  must  confess  for  one,  that  however  con- 


The  Mystery  of  the  Birth  213 

fronted  and  impressed  with  the  rational  and  natural 
difficulties  which  we  are  about  to  meet  in  the  opposite 
view,  it  is  equally  impossible  for  me  not  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian, or  to  be  one  under  the  conception  of  such  a  man- 
hood of  Jesus  as  the  above.  And  I  believe  that  in  so 
saying  I  am  expressing  the  normal  Christian  instinct 
and  experience  of  the  world.  Now  let  us  try  to  analyze 
this  instinct  or  conviction. 

I  shall  not,  I  am  sure,  after  what  has  gone  before,  be 
charged  with  neglect  or  diminution  of  the  human  side 
or  aspect  of  the  work  or  the  person  of  our  Lord.  I 
believe  very  thoroughly  that  the  purpose  of  His  being 
in  the  world,  and  the  work  He  accomplished  for  hu- 
manity, is  all  to  be  seen  only  in  what  He  Himself  was 
as  man.  I  believe  that  humanity  in  His  person  real- 
ized all  itself  and  attained  all  its  end.  But  while  I 
believe  that  there  was  nothing  revealed  or  manifested 
to  us  in  Jesus  Christ,  save  the  perfection  of  His  hu- 
jmanity,  yet  I  equally  believe  that  in  that  perfection 
there  was  infinitely  more  than  the  humanity  so  per- 
fected. In  other  words,  I  see  in  Jesus  not  only  the 
i supreme  act  of  humanity  in  God,  but  the  supreme  act 
'also  of  God  in  humanity.  The  dilemma  to  which  for 
la  time  at  the  beginning  the  Church  seemed  to  be  shut 
up,  in  the  seeming  impossibility  of  holding  together 
both  sides  of  so  great  a  truth,  was  the  necessity  either  of 
so  holding  the  deity  of  our  Lord  as  that  the  humanity 
amounted  to  nothing  and  was  quite  incapable  of  play- 
ing the  important  part  belonging  to  it  in  the  work  of 
its  redemption  and  completion,  or  else  of  so  holding 
the  reality  of  the  humanity  as  that  the  act  and  work 


214  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

of  God  in  it  fell  too  far  short  of  what  was  actually 
accomplished  and  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ.  The 
need  of  Christianity  is  a  conception  large  enough  and 
comprehensive  enough  to  transcend  tliis  dilemma  by 
satisfying  the  demands  on  both  sides. 

There  are  different  right  ways  of  looking  at  a  thing. 
With  regard  to  the  account  contained  in  the  story  of 
the  birth  of  the  relation  between  the  divine  and  the 
human  in  the  person  of  our  Lord,  we  may  view  the 
story  either  as  determining  the  truth  of  the  matter  or 
as  determined  by  the  truth  of  the  matter.  We  may 
accept  it  as  an  authoritative  account  declaring  to  us 
jfrom  heaven  the  respective  parts  of  the  divine  and  the 
[human  in  the  joint  act  of  the  appearance  of  Jesus  Christ 
in  the  flesh.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  we  may  view 
'the  act  or  fact  itself  as  the  essential  and  real  thing, 
and  the  human  account  of  it  as  only  a  more  or  less 
adequate  expression  of  the  impression  produced  by 
it.  For  reasons  controlling  us  in  our  present  pur- 
pose, we  are  now  occupying  the  second  point  of  view. 
We  are  regarding  our  Lord  Himself  as  God's  word  or 
revelation,  and  the  mere  record  of  Him  as  the  human 
effort  (more  or  less  divinely  guided  and  assisted)  to 
convey  the  effect  of  His  manifestation  in  fullest  ac- 
cordance with  the  truth  and  meaning  of  it.  Viewed  in 
this  light,  I  think  we  shall  find  the  story  of  the  birth 
an  expression  as  true  as  it  is  beautiful  of  the  permanent 
and  final  Christian  conception  of  the  origin  of  Jesus 
Christ  consistent  with  the  truth  of  His  person.  To 
test  this  aright,  we  must  try  to  put  ourselves  in  the 
place  of,  to  embody  in  ourselves,  the  universal,  ade- 


The  Mystery  of  the  Birth  215 

quate,  ultimate,  judgment  of  humanity,  in  its  highest 
experience  and  understanding  of  the  person  and  work 
of  Jesus.  If  we  succeed  at  all  in  attaining  that  point 
of  view,  I  am  sure  that  we  shall  sympathize  with  the 
Gospels  in  their  final  form,  and  with  the  Church  in  its 
very  first  act,  apostolic  and  post-apostolic,  in  repudi- 
ating any  account  of  our  Lord's  origin  which  would 
represent  Him  as  merely  an  individual  man,  or  single 
human  person,  elected  as  any  other  might  have  been 
elected  to  be  brought  into  unique  or  exceptional  per- 
sonal relations  with  God.  This  is  precisely  what  His 
natural  birth  of  Joseph  and  Mary  would  necessarily 
make  Him.  On  the  contrary  the  instinct  and  reason 
and  consensus,  or  common  sense  based  upon  experience, 
of  Christianity  persists  in  and  insists  upon  seeing  in 
Jesus  a  vastly  more  both  intensive  and  extensive  mani- 
festation and  operation  of  God  in  humanity  than  is 
consistent  with  that  low  view.  Let  any  man  put  him- 
self in  the  mental  and  spiritual  attitude  of  the  Apostles, 
of  St.  Paul,  St.  Peter,  or  St.  John,  after  the  Lord  had 
become  known  to  them  no  longer  in  the  flesh  but  in 
the  spirit,  by  which  I  mean  in  His  risen  and  divine 
humanity,  and  try  to  conceive  of  the  Jesus  of  their 
actual  personal  relations  with  Him  as  a  man,  who  but 
for  the  accident  of  his  special  election  would  have  been 
like  one  of  themselves.  It  is  quite  possible  —  and  not 
only  so,  but  easy  and  natural  to  the  spiritual  Christian 
consciousness  —  to  see  in  our  Lord  a  human  nature, 
a  human  experience,  a  human  life,  broader,  deeper, 
higher,  completer  than  any  of  ours,  not  less  but  more 
human  by  every  feature  of  difference  between  it  and 


216  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

our  own,  subject  to  every  condition,  law,  or  necessity 
that  binds  human  Hfe  in  general,  and  yet  to  see  in  that 
exhibition  of  manhood  not  only  humanly  perfect  but 
humanly  perfected  before  our  eyes  —  a  manifestation 
no  less  of  God  Himself  present  and  operative  and 
actual  in  all  that  human  activity.  The  question  then 
is,  Who,  now  that  we  have  come  to  know  Him,  shall 
Jesus  be  to  us  ?  The  theory  of  a  dual  subject,  or  double 
personality,  in  Him  is  an  impossibility,  and  need  not 
be  discussed.  Who  then  shall  He  be  to  us  —  who 
shall  it  be  with  whom  we  shall  have  to  do,  as  the  sub- 
ject of  all  our  infinite  and  infinitely  significant  personal 
relations  with  Him  ?  Shall  Jesus,  as  Jesus,  fade  away 
as  the  mere  two  thousand  year  ago  medium  of  God's 
self-manifestation  to  us,  with  no  significance  to  us  in 
his  own  purely  human  self  but  that  of  a  memory  and 
an  example  ?  Or  shall  we  persist  to  the  end  in  seeing 
V  in  Jesus  Christ  God  Himself  personally  revealed  in  the 
'fulfilled  and  manifested  truth  of  our  humanity;  in  His 
actualized  human  holiness,  righteousness,  life,  God 
our  holiness,  righteousness,  life?  What  we  want  in 
religion  is,  not  to  know  about  God  as  He  may  be  in 
Himself,  or  as  He  bears  witness  to  Himself  in  creation ; 
we  want  to  know  God  Himself  in  personal  relation  with 
ourselves,  and  that  is  just  precisely  what  Jesus  Christ 
not  only  expresses  but  is  to  each  one  of  us.  The  human 
self  in  Him  was  not  that  of  only  one  of  us,  but  of  us  all. 
It  was  not  one  man  but  humanity  that  He  was.  We 
were  every  one  present  in  Him ;  as,  if  we  but  knew  it,  He 
is  present  in  us  every  one ;  and  operative  unto  salvation 
in  every  one  of  us  who  believes  and  realizes  His  presence. 


The  Mystery  of  the  Birth  217 

It  is  not  in  the  interest  of  our  Lord's  deity  that  Chris- 
tianity objects  to  the  notion  of  His  individual  humanity. 
It  is  rather  that,  according  to  that  notion,  we  have  no 
more  interest  in  Jesus,  in  the  individual  humanity, 
human  holiness,  human  life,  embodied  in  Him,  than 
that  of  a  distant  and  isolated  example.  Whereas, 
what  Christianity  wants,  and  believes,  and  is,  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  fact,  not  at  all  that  God  once  mani- 
fested Himself  exceptionally  and  perfectly  in  one  man, 
but  that  God  once  for  all  and  completely  incarnated 
Himself  in  humanity  as  His  Son,  and  in  that  all-com- 
prehensive act  made  all  men  His  sons  —  potentially, 
that  is,  upon  the  condition  of  their,  in  faith  and  fact,  so 
making  themselves.  Every  man,  therefore,  should  go, 
not  merely  back  to  Christ,  in  memory  or  in  history,  but 
to  the  ever-present  Christ,  in  act  and  life,  as  God  in 
humanity,  and  therefore  in  himself,  the  power  and 
reality  of  his  own  holiness,  righteousness,  and  eternal 
life. 

Now,  independently  of  any  objective  authority  in 
the  story  itself  of  the  birth  of  Jesus,  let  us  ob- 
serve how  instinctively  and  delicately  true  it  is  to 
the  innermost  and  uttermost  consciousness  of  Chris- 
tianity as  to  the  Who  or  What,  the  origin  or 
personality,  of  its  founder.  It  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  it  was  about  to  involve  itself  in  a  diffi- 
cult if  not  impossible  physical  problem;  but  for  all 
that,  it  was  impossible  for  Christian  faith  to  commit 
itself  to  the  idea  that  Jesus  was  in  such  wise  son  of 
Joseph  and  Mary  as  that  He  was  the  individual  human 
person  that  must  have  resulted  from  that  fact.    Rather 


218  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

was  He  son  of  God  and  man,  of  heaven  and  earth,  of 
deity  and  humanity,  in  a  vastly  more  universal  union 
and  relation  than  would  be  consistent  or  reconcilable 
with  such  a  supposition.  I  am  very  far  from  saying 
that  the  story  of  the  birth  was  the  outcome  of  any  such 
reflection  and  conscious  conclusion  on  the  part  of 
Christianity  at  the  start.  What  I  believe  is  that  the 
truth  itself  so  shaped  the  mind  and  the  expression  of 
faith  as  to  keep  it  in  harmony  with  itself.  But  how 
does  the  matter  so  shape  itself?  Not  in  an  abstract 
statement  from  heaven  of  the  deity  and  the  humanity 
of  our  Lord  and  of  the  mode  of  the  union  in  one  per- 
son. Not  in  an  exact  and  scientific  declaration  of  the 
facts  or  manner  of  the  generation,  conception,  and 
birth.  Rather,  in  a  highly  elevated  and  poetic  series 
of  pictures  in  which  the  spiritual  and  legitimately 
imaginative  powers  are  raised  to  the  highest  point  of 
understanding  and  appreciation  of  the  transcendent 
divine  fact  conveyed;  and  at  the  same  time  the  mind 
is  lifted  beyond  and  above  the  inexplicable  obstacle 
of  the  physical  mystery.  When  the  two  inevitable 
and  yet  inexplicable  seeming  miracles  of  the  higher 
generation  and  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  are 
objected  to,  the  true  answer  of  Christianity  is  not  an 
attempted  physical  explanation  or  justification  of  them; 
it  is  rather  such  a  conception,  realization,  and  appre- 
ciation of  the  spiritual  necessities  and  realities,  not 
involved  in  but  themselves  involving  those  mysteries, 
that  faith  intelligently  and  persistently  elects  to  hold 
fast  to  the  divine  facts  and  leave  the  mysteries  in  their 
own  time  and  way  to  solve  themselves.     I  say  again 


The  Mystery  of  the  BiHh  219 

that  I  am  no  advocate  of  miracles.  But  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  highest  acts  or  events  in  the  earthly- 
history  of  God  or  nature  or  man  are,  when  viewed  as 
they  ultimately  shall  be  in  the  light  of  their  suflScient 
reasons,  or  final  causes,  miracles  in  any  objectionable 
sense.  On  the  contrary,  they  shall  be  known  to  be 
the  most  natural  of  facts,  because  they  are  the  real 
acts,  events,  and  ends  for  which  nature  itself  exists, 
the  products  or  results  of  which  it  is  but  the  machinery. 
We  must  now  remind  ourselves  that  while  the  story 
of  the  birth  of  our  Lord  gives  us  in  simple  and  poetic 
'  form  the  matrix  for  a  doctrine  of  His  higher  personality, 
it  does  not  go  the  whole  way  in  the  construction  of  such 
a  doctrine.  For  example,  in  neither  St.  Matthew's 
nor  St.  Luke's  account  of  the  birth  is  there  expressed 
or  implied  the  fact  of  a  personal  pre-existence  of  our 
Lord.  The  representations  go  no  further  than  that 
the  child  born  was  of  divine  and  not  human  paternity, 
and  in  consequence  was  to  be  called  son  of  God.  If 
the  matter  were  to  go  no  further  than  this,  the  impli- 
\  cation  would  be  that  He  who  originated  in  that  act  of 
^  divine  generation  and  human  conception  and  birth 
was  a  divine-human  being,  whose  existence  dated  from 
that  moment.  God,  by  an  inexplicable  act  in  humanity, 
produced  in  Jesus  Christ  one  who,  as  he  was  son  of  no 
individual  man,  so  was  himself  no  particular  or  in- 
dividual son  of  man.  He  was  not  the  son  of  a  man, 
but  the  Son  of  man;  and  so  He  was  not  a  man  but  man, 
all  men  and  every  man,  the  common  humanity  in  which 
all  are  one  and  of  which  He  is  the  essence  and  the  unity. 
This  would  satisfy  the  Christian  consciousness  up  to  a 


220  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

certain  point,  but  not  wholly  so  and  therefore  not  per- 
manently so,  as  we  shall  soon  see.  It  gives  freer  scope 
to  the  necessary  conception  of  the  universality  of  our 
Lord's  humanity  and  personality.  It  makes  Him 
more  adequately  and  comprehensively  Immanuel, 
God  with  us,  and  God  in  us.  It  better  explains  at 
once  the  perfect  humanity  and  humanness  of  our  Lord 
and  the  mystery  of  the  perfection  in  the  humanness  or 
humanity.  It  furnishes  a  more  sufficient  basis  for  the 
essential  truth  of  Christianity  expressed  in  the  phrases, 
God  our  holiness,  God  our  righteousness,  God  our  life. 
But  if  we  go  so  far,  we  must  of  necessity  go  further, 
and  even  so  much  of  the  truth  as  is  won  by  so  much 
advance  finds  confirmation  and  is  made  secure  only  by 
the  fuller  truth  of  a  yet  further  progress. 


xvm 

IDEAL  PRE-EXISTENCE 

When  our  Lord  said  of  Himself,  as  reported  by 
St.  John,  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am,  it  is  not  impos- 
sible that  He  referred  to  an  ideal  pre-existence  in  the 
mind  of  God.  He  may  have  meant  that  the  truth 
embodied  in  Him,  the  purport  and  purpose  of  His 
personal  presence  and  His  lifework  upon  earth,  was 
something  always  in  the  mind  of  God,  something 
which  the  faith  of  Abraham  had  foreseen  and  rejoiced 
in.  At  any  rate,  we  shall  not  for  the  present  go  beyond 
the  abundant  matter  for  reflection  contained  in  even 
this  understanding  of  the  words.  If  we  trust  ourselves 
to  the  mind  of  the  Gospels,  the  New  Testament,  and 
primitive  Christianity,  we  are  not  as  yet  making  too 
much,  but  rather  too  little,  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus. 
The  eternal  significance  of  that  truth,  in  its  relation  to 
God,  the  whole  creation,  and  more  immediately  to 
humanity,  fills  all  minds  and  finds  expression  in  a 
variety  of  independent  forms.  In  our  own  endeavours 
—  endeavours  that  should  not  and  shall  not  cease 
while  the  world  lasts  —  to  find  new  interpretation  and 
new  illumination  of  the  divine  meaning  of  our  Lord, 
we  find  ourselves  inevitably  moving  along  the  lines  of 
primitive  thought  and  life,  for  the  simple  reason  that 

221 


222  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

those  are  the  only  lines  on  which  the  matter  itself  per- 
sists in  thinking  and  living  itself  out.  In  view,  then, 
of  the  impossibility  of  doing  otherwise,  I  shall  adduce 
and  comment  upon  several  of  the  New  Testament 
statements  of  the  eternal  significance  of  the  truth  of 
Jesus  Christ.  AVhen  I  speak  of  the  eternal  signifi- 
cance, I  mean  eternal  both  a  parte  ante  and  a  parte 
post.  So  significant  is  the  truth  of  Jesus  that  in  God 
Himself  it  dominates  both  the  eternity  of  the  past  and 
the  eternity  of  the  future.  It  occupies  the  divine  fore- 
knowledge and  determines  the  divine  predestination. 

We  will  first  consider  the  meaning  of  our  Lord  in 
His  relation  to  humanity.  In  Him  God  is  described 
as  having  foreknown  and  predestined  or  foreordained 
every  man  and  humanity  itself.  The  purpose  and 
destiny  of  man  from  eternity  is  revealed  in  Him  as 
being  that  of  sons  of  God.  We  were  foreordained 
unto  a  sonship  to  God  not  yet  realized  in  man,  but 
realized  in  anticipation  in  that  man  in  whom  God  has 
revealed  us  to  ourselves  and  given  us  already  in  faith 
the  inheritance,  or  destiny  of  sons,  which  awaits  us  in 
fact.  And  not  only  did  God  in  His  eternal  foreknowl- 
edge and  purpose  foreordain  or  predestine  us  to  be 
conformed  to  the  image  of  His  Son,  as  the  firstborn 
among  many  brethren,  or  the  first  to  realize  and  mani- 
fest the  divine  destiny  of  all,  but  in  that  Son  Himself 
He  preordained  as  also  He  in  time  accomplished  the 
whole  course  and  process  of  human  redemption  and 
completion.  Every  incident  or  event  in  the  human 
experience  of  His  Son  befell  Him  by  the  determinate 
foreknowledge  and  counsel  of  the  Father,  who  before 


Ideal  Pre-existence  223 

the  aeons  had  determined  in  His  wisdom  not  only 
man's  destiny  but  the  mode  and  method  of  it.  The  way 
of  salvation  is  expressed  in  the  words.  It  behoved  Him, 
by  whom  and  for  whom  are  all  things,  in  bringing  many 
sons  to  glory,  to  make  the  author  of  their  salvation 
perfect  through  sufferings,  —  supplemented  and  com- 
pleted by  these  other  words,  And  having  been  made 
perfect.  He  became  unto  all  them  that  obey  Him  the 
author,  or  cause,  of  eternal  salvation. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  follow  out  the  above  truth 
as  it  is  briefly  suggested  by  another  writer  of  the  New 
Testament.  God,  we  are  told,  having  in  various  meas- 
ures and  manners  spoken  to  the  world  through  prophets, 
spoke  to  us  at  iast  in  a  son.  That  is  to  say,  in  one  who 
bore  to  Himseif  the  very  real  and  profound  relation  of 
son.  The  form  of  expression  as  well  as  all  the  succeed- 
ing context  means  to  emphasize  to  the  utmost  the  truth 
of  sonship  as  being  the  res  or  matter  of  God's  self- 
revelation  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ.  God's  purpose  was 
to  lead  many  sons,  humanity  —  personally,  and  there- 
fore one  by  one  —  to  glory  through  self-attained  son- 
ship  to  Himself.  This  was  to  be  accomplished  through 
one  Himself  perfected  for  ever  as  son  through  the  things 
He  had  suffered  in  a  perfect  human  experience,  and 
so  fitted  to  impart  the  truth  and  grace  of  perfect  son- 
ship  to  those  who  could  themselves  attain  it  only  through 
such  sufferings.  Now  the  point  to  observe  is  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  writer  speaks  of  the  double  eternity 
of  the  truth  of  that  sonship  of  Jesus,  and  of  humanity 
in  Jesus.  God  has  spoken  to  us  in  a  Son,  whom  He 
appointed  heir  of  all  things,  by  whom  also  He  made 


224  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

the  worlds.  Dropping  for  the  present  all  question  of 
an  eternal  pre-human  personality  ascribed  here  to  our 
Lord,  and  interpreting  the  words  only  as  meaning  that 
there  was  accomplished  and  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ 
a  human  sonship  for  which  and  through  which  the  whole 
creation  of  God  from  eternal  beginning  to  eternal  end 
was  brought  into  being  or  existed  at  all  —  and  surely 
it  cannot  mean  anything  less  than  this  —  let  us  reflect 
for  a  moment  upon  the  stupendous  importance  attached 
by  it  to  the  divine-human  truth  of  Jesus  Christ.  We 
will  throw  our  appreciation  of  it  into  the  following 
statement:  The  sonship  realized  and  revealed  to  us  in 
Jesus  Christ  is  at  once  the  final  and  the  first  cause  of 
all  things,  of  the  whole  creation.  The  universe  comes 
to  its  majority  and  enters  upon  its  inheritance  in  His 
person.  If  this  seems  an  exaggerated  and  preposterous 
statement,  it  is  nevertheless  just  what  is  consistently 
and  persistently  maintained  in  the  New  Testament 
as  a  whole.  And  not  only  is  it  in  many  places,  as  we 
shall  see,  actually  so  stated,  but  the  statement  itself  is 
in  perfect  harmony  and  keeping  with  the  whole  mind 
and  truth  of  the  sacred  record  and  the  faith  of  Chris- 
tianity then  and  since.  The  argument  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  would  need  a  much  more  detailed 
exposition  to  bring  out  the  full  force  of  its  bearing  upon 
the  matter  in  hand,  and  I  hope  to  give  it  in  a  separate 
treatment.  Stated  now  very  briefly,  the  object  is  to 
portray  the  destiny  of  man  as  it  has  been  realized  in 
anticipation  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  through  His 
perfect  sufferings  and  sacrifice  and  His  thereby  per- 
fected sonship.     Jesus  Christ  is  thus  revealed  as  the 


Ideal  Pre-existence  225 

meaning  and  purpose  of  humanity  from  the  beginning, 
and  its  divine  accomplishment  or  fulfilment  in  the  end. 
But  the  meaning  and  end  of  humanity  is  the  meaning 
and  end  of  creation,  and  so  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus 
acquires  not  only  a  universal  human  significance,  but 
an  eternal  cosmical  significance. 

It  may  be  too  much  to  say  that  Christianity  antici- 
pates the  modern  teaching  of  evolution,  but  that  teach- 
ing certainly  wonderfully  adapts  itself  to  the  expression 
of  Christianity.  The  argument  we  are  tracing  assumes 
that  creation  has  been  by  ceons,  ages  or  stages,  in  which 
each  lower  has  been  the  preparation  for  the  next  higher. 
As  from  the  beginning,  matter  has  existed  for  spirit, 
and  necessity  for  freedom,  so  in  the  later  stages  the 
aeon  of  law  has  prepared  the  way  for  and  is  now  ready 
to  give  way  to  that  of  faith.  The  appeal  of  the  one  is 
to  the  natural  powers  and  accountability  of  man,  which 
needed  to  be  first  developed  and  could  be  so  only  under 
the  demands  and  sanctions  of  objective  law.  The 
other,  through  the  experienced  insufficiency  of  nature 
and  impotency  of  the  human  will  in  itself,  appeals  to  a 
higher  and  later  development  of  the  nature  of  man, 
whose  end  and  function  is  to  fulfil  and  be  fulfilled  by 
—  not  self  but  God,  or  self  only  in  God.  Thus  what 
we  can  never  be  of  ourselves  through  law  we  shall  be 
of  God  through  faith.  The  successive  a?ons  do  not 
contradict  but  prepare  for  and  fulfil  each  other,  and 
He  who  is  the  end  of  the  last  is  the  end  of  all.  So 
Jesus  Christ  who  is  the  end  of  faith  is  the  end  also  of 
law;  the  end  of  spiritual  manhood  was  the  predestined 
end  also  of  natural  manhood,  and  still  more  generally 


226  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

the  ends  of  spirit  were  those  of  matter.  So  the  author 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  could  see  in  Jesus  Christ 
not  only  the  end  of  humanity  but  the  heir  of  all  things. 
And  because  He  was  final  cause  of  all  creation,  that  for 
which  the  universe  exists,  therefore  was  He  also  first 
cause  and  efficient  cause.  Because  in  all  rational 
production  it  is  the  end  which  determines  and  sets  in 
motion  the  beginning;  it  is  the  end  which  comprehends 
and  orders  all  the  means,  and  in  which  the  whole 
process  consists  or  holds  together  in  the  correlation  of 
the  parts  and  the  unity  and  consistency  of  the  whole. 
So  Jesus  Christ  is  the  perfect  expression  of  God  so  far 
as  God  has  expressed  Himself  at  all,  the  raying  forth 
of  His  otherwise  invisible  glory,  the  outward  impress 
of  His  secret  substance. 

The  identical  truth,  in  all  its  length  and  breadth 
and  depth,  is  quite  independently  expressed  in  the 
Epistles  to  the  Colossians.  There  too  Jesus  Christ 
has  not  only  a  universal  human  but  an  eternal  cosmical 
significance.  In  Him  we  have  our  redemption,  the 
remission  or  putting  away  of  our  sins;  He  has  recon- 
ciled us  in  the  body  of  His  flesh  through  death,  to  pre- 
sent us  holy  unto  God.  That  is  to  say,  in  Him  we 
have  died  to  sin  and  now  live  to  God.  But  that  is  only 
the  last  stage  of  what  He  eternally  was  and  is  and  shall 
be  to  us.  He  was  the  entire  divine  foreknowledge  and 
purpose  and  shall  be  the  entire  divine  completion  and 
fulfilment.  His  relation  to  the  Church  was  His  rela- 
tion to  humanity,  and  His  relation  to  humanity  was 
His  relation  to  creation,  and  His  relation  to  creation 
was  His  absolute  and  universal  relation  to  God.     He 


Ideal  Pre-existence  227 

is  the  image  of  the  invisible  God,  the  firstborn  of  all 
creation;  for  in  Him  were  all  things  created.  ...  All 
things  were  created  through  Him  (as  efficient  cause), 
and  unto  Him  (as  final  cause);  and  He  is  before  all 
things,  and  in  Him  all  things  consist.  Language  like 
this  flows  easily  and  naturally  out  of,  and  is  in  the  most 
perfect  consistency  and  harmony  with,  the  entire  New 
Testament  conception  of  Jesus  Christ.  His  own  per- 
sonal attitude  and  claims  are  explained  and  justified 
by  it,  and  would  be  by  nothing  lower  or  less.  We  can 
see  in  the  light  of  it,  and  no  otherwise,  why  in  His 
name  repentance  and  remission,  redemption  and 
salvation,  should  be  preached  to  all  the  world,  and 
into  His  name  all  mankind  should  be  baptized  for  the 
eternal  life  which  He  is  and  which  He  gives. 

This  is  not  yet  the  whole  height  of  it,  and  yet  I  would 
affirm  that  no  one  who  rises  to  this  height  of  the  con- 
ception of  Jesus  Christ  can  for  an  instant  tolerate  the 
idea  that  His  humanity  was  but  that  of  an  individual 
human  person  in  whom  God  exceptionally  revealed 
His  presence  and  power.  The  Lord  of  glory  was  not 
an  individual  man  in  God ;  He  was  all  humanity  in  God, 
because  He  was  God  Himself  in  humanity.  The 
humanity  in  which  God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh  was 
our  common,  our  universal  humanity.  In  it  He  was 
no  less  man  than  we;  in  it  He  knew  no  other  laws  or 
conditions  than  ours;  in  it  He  wrought  out  the  only 
possible  redemption  or  completion  for  us;  in  it  He 
manifested  a  holiness,  righteousness,  life,  which  be- 
cause they  were  human  and  humanly  attained  may 
be  ours  also;  in  Him,  because  He  was  what  we  are  and 


228  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

where  we  are,  we  too  shall  be  where  and  what  He  is. 
But  to  us  He  is  in  His  humanity  Himself  and  not 
another.  Not  another  in  whom  He  is,  but  evermore 
the  One  Who  He  is.  Therefore,  in  corroboration  of  the 
conclusion  reached  in  the  previous  chapter,  from  the 
larger  and  higher  standpoint  which  we  have  reached, 
we  reiterate  the  impossibility  of  seeing  in  Jesus  the  son 
of  Joseph  and  Mary,  because  in  that  case  He  could  not 
but  have  been  the  individual  human  person  whom 
from  the  higher  approach  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
think  Him. 

It  may  now  be  asked,  and  unquestionably  will  be 
asked,  how  w^e  shall  go  about  conceiving  the  derivation 
from  Mary  of  a  human  nature  apart  from  a  distinct 
human  subject  or  personality.  For  my  part,  I  might 
say  that  I  do  not  go  about  it  at  all.  What  I  am  con- 
cerned about  is  simply  the  matter  of  our  Lord's  person 
or  personality,  without  any  responsibility  or  com- 
petency for  the  question  of  how  it  came  about.  The 
Gospels  do  give  us  a  most  highly  and  beautifully  poetical 
account  of  that,  and  the  account  assists  me  to  imagine 
or  picture  to  myself  what  I  can  in  no  wise  explain  or 
understand.  I  do  not  at  all  believe  the  one  divine- 
human  personality  of  our  Lord  upon  the  authoritative 
statement  of  the  story  of  His  birth.  Knowing  Jesus 
Himself  as  He  is  known  and  revealed  to  us  in  the  New 
Testament  and  in  the  mind  and  experience  of  the 
Church,  I  unhesitatingly  recognize  in  Him  —  and  the 
more,  the  more  I  know  Him  —  no  single  man  filled 
with  God,  but  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  present  and 
operative  in  all  humanity.     The  humanity  in  Him  is 


Ideal  Pre-existence  229 

mine  and  every  man's;  the  divinity  in  Him  is  God  po- 
tentially present  in  every  man  for  salvation,  and  effi- 
ciently present  and  saving  in  every  man  who  believes. 
We  are  primarily  and  essentially  interested  in  the 
spiritual  truth  given  us  in  Jesus  Christ.  We  are  only 
secondarily  and  speculatively  interested  in  the  physical 
or  metaphysical  or  scientific  explanation  of  hoio  those 
spiritual  truths  or  facts  have  come  about.  As  I  said 
in  connection  with  the  resurrection,  all  that  may  be 
said  to  belong  to  the  machinery  of  the  Gospel ;  it  is  not 
the  Gospel  itself. 

What  is  the  Gospel  itself,  in  recapitulation  of  the  con- 
clusions so  far  reached  by  us,  may  be  expressed  in  an 
expansion  of  St.  Paul's  definition  of  the  ministry  of 
reconciliation,  to  wit,  that  God  was  in  Christ,  recon- 
ciling the  world  unto  Himself.  God  may  have  been 
in  Christ  in  different  degrees  of  identity  with  Him,  and 
we  do  not  take  the  words  as  defining  or  determining 
the  degree,  further  than  that  the  world  of  humanity  — 
and  apparently,  from  other  passages,  the  world  outside 
of  humanity  —  was  in  Christ  brought  into  spiritual 
and  moral  harmony  with  God.  The  degree  and  man- 
ner of  God's  being  in  Christ  we  deduce  not  so  much 
from  any  particular  statement  or  statements  at  all  as 
from  the  entire  phenomenon  of  the  Christ  Himself 
whose  ergon  or  actual  operation  in  the  world  was  to  be 
His  most  exact  definition  and  His  most  perfect  creden- 
tial. Judging  our  Lord,  then,  in  the  totality  of  His 
manifestation  and  operation  in  the  Gospel,  we  come 
first  with  Christianity  to  the  conclusion  that  we  have 
here  to  do  with  a  work  wrought  in  no  particular  indi- 


230  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

vidual  of  our  race  but  in  the  common  or  universal 
humanity  of  the  whole  race.  So  convinced  is  Chris- 
tianity from  the  beginning  that  its  relation  to  Christ 
is  not  that  to  an  individual  man,  who  could  by  no  means 
be  to  it  more  than  an  historic  example  and  an  objective 
and  remote  influence  —  for  how  can  any  particular 
man  that  ever  lived  be  the  universal  presence  and  the 
potential  self  that  Jesus  Christ  may  be  to  every  man !  — 
that  there  ensues  to  it  the  necessity  of  some  mode  in 
which  there  may  be,  and  is,  the  actual  presence  and 
operation  of  God  in  a  humanity  which  is  not  that  of 
any  one  man  but  which  every  man  may  know  to  be  his 
own,  and  in  which  everything  done  in  Christ  every  man 
may  know  to  be  done  in  himself.  This  universality 
of  the  humanity  of  our  Lord  may  be  vague  and  inde- 
finable, and  it  may  very  inadequately  express  the  actual 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus;  but  the  vagueness  is  in  our  con- 
ception and  expression.  The  universality  and  poten- 
tiality of  the  relation  of  Jesus  Christ  to  humanity  as  a 
whole  and  to  every  individual  member  of  it,  however 
inadequately  explained  or  expressed  by  us,  remains  a 
fact  and  transcends  in  infinite  extent  and  degree  the 
possible  effect  of  any  relation  to  any  individual  son  of 
man.  The  fact,  then,  of  such  a  universal  humanity  is 
the  truth  of  religion.  How  it  shall  come  about  is  a 
physical  or  metaphysical  problem  of  tremendous  interest 
to  speculative  curiosity,  but  not  an  essential  part  of  re- 
ligious faith.  If  there  should  be  such  a  general  mani- 
festation of  God  in  our  humanity  as  we  are  at  present 
desiderating  and  claiming,  how  should  we  a  priori 
expect  the  physical  mode  of  it  to  appear  to  us?    For 


Ideal  Pre-existence  231 

my  part,  I  should  not  expect  a  scientific  demonstration 
of  the  natural  process.  I  should  look  for  just  such 
spiritual  evidence  to  faith  that  the  thing  has  taken 
place,  and  just  such  undefined  and  poetic  expression 
to  sense,  as  we  actually  possess  in  the  Gospels  and  in 
the  actual  and  permanent  work  of  the  Gospel.  I  take, 
then,  the  whole  story  of  the  Gospel  of  the  birth  and 
infancy  of  our  Lord  as  simply  so  much  as  God  pleased 
to  reveal  to  sense  and  imagination  of  the  physical  side 
of  an  act  on  His  part  in  humanity,  the  interest  and 
concern  to  us  in  which  is  chiefly  on  the  spiritual  side.  We 
want  to  know  God  in  Christ  in  all  the  extent  and  ful- 
ness and  effect  of  His  being  there;  it  is  not  necessary, 
and  it  would  not  be  profitable,  to  us  to  know  physio- 
logically how  He  came  or  became  there.  I  accept  the 
account  of  the  birth  without  knowing  at  all  how  it  is 
true. 

Just  as  we  stand  to  the  problem  of  the  virgin-birth, 
so  vexing  to  those  who  would  have  a  scientific  explana- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ  as  an  historical  physical  phenom- 
enon in  the  world,  so  we  stand,  as  has  been  partially 
stated  before,  to  the  problem  of  the  resurrection.  The 
two  facts  on  their  spiritual  side  stand  intimately  related 
and  mutually  dependent  as  follows:  While  it  would  be 
quite  possible  in  itself  to  represent  the  earthly  career 
of  Jesus,  as  without  flaw  or  break,  an  act  of  humanity 
—  the  act  in  which,  from  beginning  to  end,  humanity 
fulfils  itself  —  yet  must  we  equally,  if  we  are  to  be  true 
to  the  whole  manifestation  of  the  truth,  be  able  to  repre- 
sent it  as  an  act  of  God  wrought  in  humanity.  The 
subject  or  person  of  the  divine-human  act  of  that  earthly 


232  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

life  is  not  two  but  one.  Viewed  in  the  human  doing 
of  it,  He  was  man,  in  all  the  limitation  that  is  proper 
to  man,  working  out  in  humanity  the  redemption  and 
perfection  necessary  for  it  in  the  way  possible  for  it. 
Viewed  in  the  divine  doing  of  it  He  was  God,  emptied 
or  shorn  of  none  of  His  divine  attributes  in  the  process 
or  performance  of  an  act  which  on  God's  part  was  as 
much  the  divinest  as  on  man's  it  was  the  most  human. 
We  must  in  no  way  even  temporarily  lower  either  side 
of  the  divine-human  co-operation  of  God  and  man  in 
the  act  of  their  mutual  reconciliation  in  Jesus  Christ. 
Now  the  reconciliation  effected  in  Christ  was  a  real 
reconciliation.  It  was  the  bringing  of  humanity,  first 
in  His  own  person,  into  not  natural  but  spiritual  unity 
with  God,  and  so  imparting  to  it  the,  not  natural  but 
spiritual,  divine  nature,  the  nature  of  holiness  and  love. 
But  the  divine  spirit  and  nature  in  us  bring  with  them 
the  divine  life.  As  sin  in  itself  and  in  all  its  conse- 
quences is  death  in  all  its  forms,  death  spiritual,  moral, 
and  physical,  so  holiness  as  the  spirit  and  nature  of  God 
in  us  is  life  in  all  its  forms  or  manifestations,  life  spirit- 
ual, moral,  and  natural.  The  act  of  perfect  holiaess 
on  the  part  of  our  Lord  was  in  itself  and  in  all  its  con- 
sequences the  act  of  perfect  life.  The  first  enemy 
dead,  the  last  enemy  dies  with  it.  Because  the  Devil 
through  all  his  temptations  found  nothing  in  Jesus  of 
sin,  therefore  he  had  no  hold  upon  Him  in  death.  The 
resurrection  was  a  necessary  consequence.  In  the 
spiritual  drama  effect  follows  cause  in  the  most  natural 
process  and  by  the  most  necessary  and  yet  free  se- 
quence in  the  whole  working  of  the  divine  evolution. 


Ideal  Pre-existence  233 

He  who  is  at  home  in  the  spirit  and  knows  God  in 
Christ  is  so  entrenched  in  the  higher  truth  of  the  Gospel 
that  he  may  safely  leave  to  God's  time  and  way  the 
solution  of  its  acknowledged,  to  us  insoluble,  lower 
problems. 


XIX 

THE  GOSPEL  IN  ST.  JOHN 

All  our  interpretation  so  far  of  the  higher  being  of 
our  Lord  is  expressed  in  terms  of  Christian  thought 
prior  to  the  writings  of  St.  John;  that  is,  it  marks  the 
progress  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
to  that  of  the  last  of  the  Gospels.  If,  apart  from  any 
particular  phrases  or  statements  which  are  always 
susceptible  of  diverse  understandings,  I  should  under- 
take to  deduce  from  the  whole  mind  of  St.  John  his 
conception  of  the  phenomenon  presented  to  the  world 
in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  I  should  express  it  as  he 
himself  does  in  the  opening  words  of  his  first  epistle. 
Jesus  Christ  is  to  him  always  the  Word  —  first,  last, 
and  complete  —  of  God.  Now,  whatever  else  or  more 
that  Word  expresses  —  and  all  that  God  has  revealed 
or  shall  reveal  of  Himself  is  expressed  in  Him  —  it  is 
manifested  to  us  first  as  a  word  of  life.  The  Life  was 
manifested,  and  we  have  heard  and  seen  and  known  it 
by  every  evidence  in  which  it  is  possible  for  human 
experience  to  attest  itself.  What  do  we  mean  by  The 
Life  ?  We  mean  the  life  lived  by  God,  lived  humanly 
among  us  by  Jesus  Christ,  lived  by  us  to  whom  in  union 
and  unity  with  Himself  He  imparts  it.  St.  John 
preaches  the  life  that  all  may  share  it,  and  our  partici- 

234 


The  Gospel  in  St.  John  235 

pation  in  it,  he  declares,  is  with  the  Father  and  with 
His  Son  Jesus  Christ.  As  to  what  the  Hfe  is,  he  de- 
clares it  to  be  what  God  is,  viz. :  light  —  which  means 
pure  truth,  pure  holiness,  pure  blessedness.  The  lack 
or  opposite  of  either  of  these,  ignorance,  sin,  sorrow,  is 
darkness  and  death.  If  we  are  walking  in  the  light, 
then  we  know  that  we  have  the  life.  The  blood  of 
Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin,  because  we  are 
dead  to  sin  by  participation  in  His  death  and  alive  to 
holiness  through  experience  of  the  power  of  His  resur- 
rection. But  if,  professing  to  be  in  Christ  and  the  life, 
we  are  walking  in  the  darkness  of  spiritual  ignorance 
and  sin  and  cowardly  or  hopeless  sorrow,  we  lie,  and 
do  not  the  truth.  The  mean  or  condition  of  this  life 
in  us  is  faith;  not  faith  in  general,  but  a  very  definite 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God.  The  actuality 
of  His  accomplished  sonship  is  the  concrete  expression 
of  the  life  of  God  realized  in  humanity.  Faith  in  and 
appropriation  of  that  sonship  through  death  and  resur- 
rection makes  us  sons  of  God  and  gives  us  the  victory 
that  overcomes  the  world.  As  Jesus  Christ  is  the  sub- 
stance of  our  eternal  life,  so  is  He  the  test  of  it.  The 
recognition  and  knowledge  of  divine  sonship  in  Him, 
the  seeing  the  Father  in  Him  as  Son,  is  the  evidence 
and  measure  of  our  capacity  to  know  truth,  to  love  holi- 
ness, to  will  righteousness,  to  live  the  life  of  God.  He 
who  believes  God  in  Him  has  set  to  his  seal  that  God  is 
true.  He  who  believes  not  Him  has  made  God  a  liar, 
because  he  believes  not  Him  who  is  God's  word  and 
witness.  And  the  witness,  accepted  or  rejected,  is 
this,  That  God  gave  unto  us  eternal  life,  and  this  life 


236  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

is  in  His  Son.  He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  the  life;  he 
that  hath  not  the  Son  of  God  hath  not  the  life. 

Let  us  reflect  for  a  moment  upon  the  corroboration 
given  us  here  of  the  conclusion  to  which  we  have  been 
already  brought.  This  witness  who  is  the  so  direct 
word  of  God  and  word  of  life  to  us  is  personally  not 
merely  one  of  ourselves,  whom  God  has  charged  with 
a  message  to  us.  He  in  whom  God  thus  speaks  is  no 
less  one  with  us,  but  He  is  far  more  one  with  God,  than 
that.  It  does  not  make  our  Lord  less  man  to  make 
Him  very  far  more  God  than  any  one  of  us  can  be,  or 
could  become  by  any  degree  of  human  intimacy  with 
the  Father. 

When  we  pass  to  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  we  may 
properly  leave  the  consideration  of  the  Prologue  to  the 
last,  as  most  probably  the  deduction  or  induction  of 
the  apostle  from  the  matter  which  makes  up  the  body 
of  the  Gospel.  Here  as  in  the  epistle  Jesus  Christ  is 
presented  to  us  primarily  and  immediately  as  the  divine 
light  and  life  of  men.  No  man  hath  seen  God;  Jesus 
Christ  only  has  declared  or  revealed  Him.  He  that 
hath  seen  Him  hath  seen  the  Father.  But  the  invisible 
divine  fatherhood  is  declared  only  in  the  divine  sonship 
realized  in  humanity  and  so  made  visible  to  men.  It 
is  only  sonship  that  reveals  or  declares  fatherhood  any- 
where, and  especially  in  that  revelation  of  fact,  or  in 
the  thing,  which  is  God's  only  method  of  expressing 
Himself.  Just  as  the  life  of  God  was  manifested  in 
our  Lord  not  by  any  mere  declaration  of  it,  but  by  the 
same  life  lived  actually  upon  earth  and  exhibited  to 
human  experience  and  investigation,  so  the  fatherhood 


The  Gospel  in  St.  John  237 

of  God  is  revealed  not  by  anything  which  our  Lord  has 
to  tell  us  about  it,  but  in  the  concrete  and  visible  reality 
of  His  sonship  perfected  before  our  eyes.  The  fact  in 
itself  that  the  necessary  effect  of  our  Lord's  being  in 
the  world  is,  first,  the  imparting  of  life,  and,  second,  the 
execution  of  judgment,  is  profoundly  recognized  by 
St.  John.  God  sent  not  the  Son  into  the  world  to 
judge  the  world,  but  to  save  the  world.  But  just  be- 
cause life  accepted  is  salvation,  life  rejected  is  damna- 
tion. Judgment  executes  itself  or  is  self-inflicted.  If 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  word  of  God,  and  is  light  and  life, 
then  he  who  believes  not  Him  is  ipso  facto  judged;  he 
forfeits  all  that  is  involved  in  being  son  of  God,  because 
he  has  not  believed  on  the  name  of  the  only  begotten 
Son  of  God.  He  refuses  to  exercise  the  faith  that 
saves,  or  to  accept  through  it  the  thing  which  is  salva- 
tion. The  consequence  of  that  is  not  God's  but  his 
own  act. 

Jesus  Christ  Himself,  all  through  St.  John's  Gospel, 
proclaims  Himself  the  resurrection,  the  regeneration, 
the  eternal  life  of  humanity.  He  is  the  water  of  life 
and  the  bread  from  heaven.  He  quenches  all  thirst 
and  satisfies  all  hunger.  In  the  most  impressive  and 
elaborate  way  He  insists  upon  the  necessity  of  our 
making  His  life  our  life,  of  taking  Him  into  ourselves 
by  such  an  act  of  spiritual  reception  and  assimilation 
as  that  He  as  the  proper  food  of  our  souls  shall  be  con- 
verted into  us  and  we  into  Him.  Such  language  may 
be  taken  too  literally,  if  we  mean  by  that  too  materially. 
The  language  of  matter  is  transferred  to  the  things  of 
spirit,  and  is  then  to  be  interpreted  in  the  sphere  of 


238  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

spirit  and  not  of  matter.  This,  I  suppose,  is  what  our 
Lord  means  in  the  words.  It  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth  ; 
the  flesh  profiteth  nothing :  the  words  that  I  have  spoken 
unto  you  are  spirit,  and  are  Hfe.  But  although  spiritual 
acts  and  processes  are  expressed  in  material  terms,  they 
are  not  less  actual  or  real.  The  act  of  eating  and 
drinking  Christ,  though  it  be  not  with  the  mouth  nor 
with  the  organs  of  physical  digestion,  assimilation,  and 
conversion,  is  just  as  much  an  act  and  just  as  necessary 
an  act.  And  moreover,  when  it  is  sacramentally  asso- 
ciated or  united  with  it,  the  spiritual  act  as  certainly 
and  definitely  takes  place  as  the  physical;  we  eat  and 
drink  Christ  as  really  and  as  eflPectually  to  the  life  of 
our  souls  as  we  do  the  bread  and  wine  to  the  nourish- 
ment of  our  bodies. 

The  profound  truth  that  the  essential  claim  of  Jesus 
Christ  upon  men,  and  the  only  ultimate  evidence  of 
that  claim,  is  to  be  found  in  the  matter  of  fact  of  what 
He  is  to  them  and  they  to  Him,  is  in  several  ways  most 
beautifully  and  touchingly  brought  out  in  the  Gospel 
of  St.  John.  Things  made  for  each  other  and  incom- 
plete without  each  other  will  naturally  seek  each  other 
and  come  together,  unless  abnormal  conditions  and 
hindrances  stand  in  the  way.  Spiritual  healing,  the 
cure  of  souls,  human  salvation,  is  as  much  a  matter  of 
assisting  nature,  of  merely  removing  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  divine  processes,  as  physical  healing  is  more 
and  more  recognizing  itself  to  be.  Spiritual  things  are  so 
truly  for  spiritual  men,  that  they  cannot  but  be  true  for 
spiritual  men,  if  they  are  truly  brought  together.  God 
for  the  soul  and  the  soul  for  God  ought  to  carry  its  own 


The  Gospel  in  St.  John  239 

truth  and  its  owii  proof,  and  will  if  it  be  not  prevented. 
To  remove  that  prevention  and  allow  the  highest  act 
in  nature  to  take  place,  was  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ  — 
to  take  away  sin  and  bring  God  and  man  together. 
The  type  in  nature  of  all  complementary  being  and  the 
consequent  act  or  fact  of  affinity  and  union  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  sex,  and  that  is  made  use  of  all  through  the 
Scriptures  in  illustration  of  the  relation  between  God 
and  humanity.  The  relation  as  it  ought  to  be,  the 
relation  as  it  is  marred  and  ruined  by  sin,  humanity 
as  in  adultery  with  impure  loves  and  false  gods,  the 
divine  patience  and  forgiveness  and  grace  that  would 
woo  us  back  into  the  true  love  and  the  true  union  out  of 
which  alone  are  the  issues  of  life  and  blessedness  —  is 
not  this  all  the  burden  of  the  Word  of  God !  John  the 
Baptist  realized  the  task  to  be  accomplished,  and  felt 
the  insufficiency  for  it  of  any  mere  man  or  any  only 
humanly  administered  ordinance.  He  that  should 
unite  God  and  man  must  come  from  above,  and  the 
grace  of  the  sacrament  of  union  must  be  of  heaven. 
He  was  not  the  bridegroom,  but  only  the  friend  of  the 
bridegroom,  whose  humbler  function  was  only  such 
human  preparation  as  could  be  made  for  His  coming. 
The  gist  of  the  whole  matter  is  expressed  in  the  words. 
He  that  hath  the  bride  is  the  bridegroom.  It  is  not 
that  he  who  is  the  bridegroom  hath  the  bride,  —  true 
as  that  is  also,  —  but  the  converse.  The  claim  of  the 
bridegroom  to  the  bride  rests  in  the  fact  that  in  her 
truest  and  deepest  self,  in  her  divine  nature  and  des- 
tinature,  she  belongs  to  Him.  When  He  seeks  her  He 
seeks  His  own,  and  when  she  accepts  Him  she  accepts 


240  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

one  who  is,  in  the  eternal  foreknowledge  of  the  past 
and  in  the  eternal  predestination  of  the  future,  her  own. 
The  meaning  of  all  affinities,  the  truth  of  all  unions, 
the  reality  of  all  completion  of  one  thing  in  another,  is 
revealed  and  realized  in  the  act  in  which  God  and  man, 
God  and  creation,  are  made  one  in  Jesus  Christ. 

The  same  general  truth  is  brought  out  by  our  Lord 
under  another  figure.  He  is  the  true  and  good  shepherd 
whose  own  the  sheep  are.  He  knows  them  and  they 
know  Him,  because  they  are  His,  and,  in  the  deepest 
natural  sense  in  all  the  universe  of  God,  in  the  root  and 
nature  of  things.  He  is  theirs.  As  deep  as  that,  in  the 
very  reality  of  all  right  or  possession,  we  are  God's  and 
God  is  ours!  As  mutual  knowledge  is  the  fruit  and 
result  of  mutual  natural  right  and  possession,  so  mutual 
love  is  the  perfect  expression  of  it.  Because  they  are 
His  and  He  is  theirs,  therefore  He  gives  His  life  for 
them  and  gives  His  life  to  them:  My  sheep  hear  my 
voice,  and  I  know  them,  and  they  follow  me.  And  I 
give  unto  them  eternal  life;  and  they  shall  never  perish. 

Jesus  Christ  is  the  door;  not  only  the  door  to  the 
sheep,  the  true  right  of  entrance  and  the  entrance  of 
the  true  right  thing  into  the  minds  and  hearts  and  lives 
of  men,  —  but  also  the  door  to  God :  By  me  if  any  man 
enter  in,  he  shall  be  saved,  and  shall  go  in  and  out,  and 
shall  find  pasture.  I  came  that  they  may  have  life, 
and  may  have  it  abundantly.  As  He  is  the  door,  so  is 
He  the  way :  No  man  cometh  to  the  Father  but  by  me. 
As  to  what  that  way  is.  He  has  left  us  in  no  doubt: 
Whither  I  go,  He  says,  ye  know  the  way.  It  is  not  the 
way  of  nature;  nature  is  part  of  the  way,  but  it  brings 


The  Gospel  in  St.  John  241 

no  man  all  the  way  to  God.  It  is  not  the  way  of  human 
wisdom  or  will;  it  is  only  through  our  own  wisdom  and 
will  indeed  that  we  can  come  to  God,  but  these  of  them- 
selves will  never  bring  us  there.  It  is  the  way  of  hu- 
mility and  need  and  dependence  and  prayer;  the  way 
of  all-enduring  patience,  all-surviving  hope,  all-over- 
coming and  conquering  faith,  all-sacrificing  and  all- 
fulfilling  love ;  it  is  the  way  of  the  water  of  baptism,  and 
the  blood  of  the  cross,  and  the  testimony  of  the  spirit. 
He  has  opened  for  us  into  the  holiest  place,  which  is 
God  Himself,  a  new  and  living  way,  through  the  veil, 
that  is  to  say,  His  flesh,  and  by  His  blood.  It  is  the 
way  by  which,  through  the  eternal  Spirit,  He  offered 
up  Himself  without  spot  to  God. 

The  raising  of  Lazarus,  which  was  the  immediate 
occasion  or  cause  of  our  Lord's  death,  whatever  it  was 
as  a  miracle,  was  a  mighty  parable  of  the  central  truth 
of  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  It  enabled  Him  to  claim  for 
Himself  that  He  is  the  resurrection  and  the  life.  It 
prefigured,  before  His  own  real  resurrection,  the  fact 
that  when  lifted  up  He  should  draw  all  men  unto  Him, 
as  being  in  Himself  and  for  all  the  victory  over  the 
world,  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  eternal  life. 
The  exousia  claimed  by  our  Lord  and  conceded  to  Him 
in  all  the  Gospels  is  carried  to  its  highest  expression  in 
St.  John.  It  is  not  only  all  authority  and  power  over 
the  flesh,  in  the  divine  might  of  the  spirit,  but  it  is 
power  and  authority  over  all  flesh.  What  He  is  in 
Himself  He  is  for  all,  with  power  to  be  in  all. 

This  last  mentioned  truth,  of  all  in  Christ  and  Christ 
in  all,  brings  us  to  another  which  is  developed  to  its 


242  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

fullest  expression  in  St.  John.  We  must  remember 
that  in  this  Gospel,  even  if  possible  more  explicitly  than 
in  all  the  others,  Jesus  at  His  baptism  was  revealed  to 
John  the  Baptist  as  He  that  baptizeth  with  the  Holy 
Spirit.  That  Spirit  was  His  own  without  measure, 
not  only  to  have  but  to  impart.  Of  His  fulness  we  all 
received,  and  grace  for  grace.  Through  that  eternal 
Spirit  He  offered  up  Himself  without  spot  to  God,  and 
the  selfsame  Spirit  in  us  is  the  inspiration  and  the 
power  of  all  love  and  service  and  sacrifice.  The  Spirit 
was  the  distinctive  promise  of  God  in  the  Gospel.  The 
Apostles  were  bidden  by  our  Lord  upon  His  ascension 
to  await  in  Jerusalem  the  promise  of  the  Father,  which, 
said  He,  ye  heard  from  me:  for  John  indeed  baptized 
with  water;  but  ye  shall  be  baptized  with  the  Holy 
Ghost  not  many  days  hence.  And  the  acts  of  the 
Apostles  and  the  life  and  activity  of  the  Church  begin 
with  that  baptism  as  a  birth  indeed  from  above.  This 
is  the  account  of  St.  Luke,  but  it  is  in  the  most  exact 
accord  with  St.  John,  who  thus  describes  the  most 
significant  act  of  our  Lord  after  His  resurrection :  Jesus 
appeared  in  the  midst  of  His  disciples,  and  said  unto 
them.  Peace  be  unto  you:  as  the  Father  hath  sent  me, 
even  so  send  I  you.  And  when  He  had  said  this.  He 
breathed  on  them,  and  saith  unto  them.  Receive  ye  the 
Holy  Ghost:  whosesoever  sins  ye  forgive,  they  are  for- 
given unto  them;  and  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain,  they 
are  retained.  The  truths  expressed  in  this  brief  com- 
mission and  mission  are  as  follows:  First,  as  God  was 
in  Christ,  the  Father  in  the  Son,  so  in  equal  reality 
and  with  equal  eflBcacy  was  Christ  to  be  in  His  disciples 


The  Gospel  in  St  John  243 

or  in  His  Church.  Their  commission  and  mission  was 
to  be  the  continuance  and  permanent  exercise  and 
activity  upon  earth  of  the  authority  and  power  which 
was  His  own  in  heaven  and  upon  earth.  As  He  had 
always  claimed  that  His  work  was  not  His  own,  but 
the  Father's,  so  was  their  work  to  be  not  theirs  but  His. 
But  His  in  them,  as  the  Father  in  Him ;  as  He  had  mani- 
fested the  Father  in  what  He  Himself  was,  so  were  they 
to  manifest  Him  not  alone  in  any  official  or  external 
authority,  but  in  the  reality  and  power  of  Himself  in 
them.  In  the  second  place,  the  commission  recognizes 
the  fact  that  the  work  of  the  Church  is  to  be  precisely 
that  of  Christ  Himself,  that  of  reconciliation  with  God 
through  remission  of  sin.  The  sacramental  act  as  well 
as  the  general  ministry  of  reconciliation  and  remission 
was  to  be  so  executed  in  His  name,  by  His  authority, 
and  with  His  power,  that  it  should  be  as  though  God 
Himself  did  it  by  them.  And  the  specific  gift,  as  of 
God  through  Him  so  of  Him  through  them  to  the  world, 
was  the  baptism  of  repentance  unto  the  death  of  sin, 
and  faith  unto  the  life  of  God  and  of  holiness. 

But  in  the  third  place,  and  what  was  the  more  explicit 
contribution  of  St.  John  to  the  account  of  the  ministry 
of  our  Lord  Himself,  and  that  committed  by  Him  to 
His  Church,  is  the  more  formal  endowment  with 
the  Spirit,  as  the  power  of  its  exercise  and  the  express 
object  of  its  communication.  And  here,  in  culmination 
and  conclusion  of  this  brief  resume  of  the  Gospel  as 
seen  by  St.  John,  we  must  dwell  a  little  more  deeply 
upon  the  necessary  nature  of  any  Gospel  to  men  as 
being  one,  equally  and  coordinately,  of  Word  and  of 


244  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

Spirit.  The  coming  to  us  of  a  gospel  with  power  is 
conditioned  not  only  upon  the  fact  of  the  objective 
communication,  but  upon  that  of  a  corresponding 
subjective  response.  The  need  of  the  latter  as  well  as 
the  former,  as  coequal  and  coordinate  part  of  the  gift 
or  grace  of  God,  is  not  only  expressed  implicitly  in  the 
necessity  of  a  baptism  with  the  Spirit,  but  is  stated 
explicitly  in  the  assurance  that  the  gift  in  Christ  in- 
cludes the  repentance  prerequisite  on  our  part  as  well 
as  the  remission  consequent  on  God's  part.  But  let  us 
look  at  the  matter  itself  as  it  actually  and  historically 
happened,  and  so  interpreted  itself  in  fact.  No  one 
can  pass  from  the  general  attitude  of  the  first  disciples 
toward  their  Lord  prior  to  what  was  said  to  have  hap- 
pened on  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  and  the  attitude  of 
those  same  disciples  toward  Him  after  that  event, 
without  feeling  the  great  difference.  Without  at  all 
commenting  upon  the  facts  or  the  meaning  of  that 
eventful  day,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  it  stands  in  the 
story  of  Christianity  for  something  scarcely  less  decisive 
than  Easter  Day  itself.  If  the  objective  fact  of  Chris- 
tianity culminated  on  Easter,  Pentecost  was  marked 
by  a  subjective  revolution  in  relation  and  in  response 
to  that  fact  that  was  quite  its  complement  and  most 
effectually  its  completion.  It  is  impossible  to  treat  as 
artistic  literary  fiction  the  picture  of  the  powerful  but 
vague  and  indefinite  emotions  and  impressions  of  the 
disciples  up  to  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  and  after  that  the 
surprising  change  to  a  clear  understanding  and  a 
definite  plan  and  purpose  as  to  the  meaning  and  the 
preaching  of  Christ  and  the  resurrection.     Something 


The  Gospel  in  St.  John  245 

had  evidently  happened  which  prepared  the  spiritual 
men  to  whom  they  were  revealed  for  the  spiritual  things 
that  were  revealed  to  them.  I  have  always  thought 
that  we  find  a  pre-intimation  of  what  was  more  per- 
fectly to  take  place,  and  on  a  larger  scale,  in  the  saying 
of  our  Lord  to  Peter,  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar- 
Jonah,  for  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto 
you,  but  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  And  also  that 
saying  of  St.  Paul,  When  it  was  the  good  pleasure  of 
God  to  reveal  His  Son  in  me.  ...  It  is  always  possible 
in  spiritual  things  to  distinguish  between  the  objective 
manifestation  to  us  and  the  subjective  revelation  in  us. 
We  may  for  a  long  time  know  spiritual  facts  without 
us,  and  then  suddenly  come  to  an  interior  knowledge 
of  them  so  different  from  and  transcending  the  other 
that  it  seems  to  be  a  difference  in  kind  as  well  as  in 
degree.  In  spiritual  things  we  say  that  it  is  the  differ- 
ence between  knowing  about  them  and  knowing  them. 
Our  Lord  Himself  distinguishes  the  light  that  is  within 
us,  the  light  of  our  own  power  of  vision,  from  the  light 
without  us,  the  light  that  comes  from  the  things  we  see. 
It  is  this  interior  light,  the  vision  of  the  spiritual  man 
for  the  spiritual  thing,  that  is  the  function  of  the  Spirit. 
It  is  of  this  that  our  Lord  says.  Except  a  man  be  bom  of 
the  Spirit,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God.  And  so 
the  most  devoted  and  sincere  knowledge  and  love  of 
Jesus  before  Pentecost  was  but  a  knowing  Him  in  the 
flesh.  After  that,  there  was  the  most  real  and  profound 
knowing  Him  in  the  spirit.  And  so  to  know  Him  was, 
according  to  St. Paul, a  new  creation;  it  was  to  be  a  new 
man,  dead  with  Him  to  sin  and  alive  with  Him  to  God. 


246  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

Our  Lord,  according  to  St.  John,  taught  that  His 
own  function  as  the  Word  was  to  be  not  superseded, 
but  succeeded  and  completed  by  that  of  the  Spirit. 
The  Spirit  coming  after  Him  was  not  to  supply  His 
absence  but  to  effect  His  presence.  The  new  mode 
of  His  presence,  not  without  but  within,  not  in  the  flesh 
but  in  the  spirit,  was  to  be  a  much  more  real  and 
effectual  presence.  The  disciples  ought  to  rejoice 
rather  than  grieve  at  His  taking  away,  because  the 
sorrow  of  His  going  would  for  them  be  swallowed  up 
in  the  joy  of  His  return.  The  Spirit  which  should 
come,  not  in  stead  but  in  fulfilment  of  Him,  would  be 
the  Spirit  of  truth,  because  it  would  bring  them  to  the 
knowledge  of  Him  who  is  the  Word  of  truth :  The  Holy 
Spirit  whom  the  Father  will  send  in  my  name  shall 
teach  you  all  things,  and  bring  to  your  remembrance 
all  that  I  said  unto  you.  He  shall  guide  you  into  all 
the  truth:  for  he  shall  not  speak  from  himself;  He  shall 
glorify  me,  for  he  shall  take  of  mine  and  declare  it  unto 
you.  As  it  is  the  part  and  function  of  the  Word  to 
reveal  to  us  from  without  the  whole  truth  of  God  and 
ourselves,  so  is  it  the  part  of  the  Spirit  to  reveal  to  us 
from  within,  to  open  our  eyes  to  see,  the  meaning  and 
truth  of  the  divine  Word.  The  Word,  as  I  have  fre- 
quently said,  is  the  principle  and  medium  of  objective 
revelation.  The  Spirit  is  that  of  subjective  apprehen- 
sion, comprehension,  and  appropriation.  Deep  an- 
swereth  unto  deep.  The  deep  of  God  without  us  and 
above  us  is  inaudible  save  as  it  is  answered  by  the  deep 
of  God  within  us.  There  is  no  gospel  or  salvation  for 
us  which  does  not  come  by  the  Word  through  the  Spirit. 


The  Gospel  in  St.  John  247 

In  a  way,  we  may  say  that  that  means,  by  God  through 
ourselves;  but,  in  a  more  true  way,  it  means  that  while 
our  salvation  must  be  of  ourselves  as  well  as  of  God,  we 
owe  the  ourselves  in  the  matter,  as  well  as  the  divine 
part  in  it,  to  God,  who  there  as  everywhere  is  All 
in  all. 


XX 

THE  LOGOS 

The  Prologue  of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John 
needs  a  treatment  to  itself,  because  it  is  the  final  de- 
duction from  all  the  matter  of  all  the  Gospels,  as  indeed 
from  the  whole  Christian  impression  of  the  whole 
phenomenon  of  Jesus  Christ.  That  Jesus  Christ  was 
a  divine  manifestation,  revelation,  or  expression  —  of 
which  there  could  be  no  doubt  —  could  not  but  lead 
to  the  question,  Of  what  is  He  the  expression  ?  That 
question  once  raised  could  not  be  laid  at  rest  until  the 
whole  answer  had  been  elicited.  (1)  He  is  the  logos 
or  divine  expression  of  humanity;  that  is  the  most 
immediate  and  self-evident  answer.  He  recapitulates 
in  Himself  not  only  the  whole  nature  but  the  whole  life 
and  destiny  of  man,  longam  expositionem  hominis. 
(2)  He  is  the  logos  of  creation,  the  revelation  and  antici- 
pation of  the  end  or  final  cause  of  all  things.  Con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  by  reason  or  by  instinct,  the 
New  Testament  anticipates  in  the  most  remarkable 
degree  that  sense  of  unity  which  is  the  first  principle 
of  modem  science.  The  unity  of  the  natural  and  the 
spiritual,  that  matter  exists  for  mind,  necessity  for  free- 
dom, the  earth  for  man,  and  finally  man  for  Christ  as 
Christ  for  God  —  that  is  all  from  beginning  to  end  a 

248 


The  Logos  249 

drama  of  evolution  as  scientific  as  it  is  rational  and 
religious.  The  knowledge  of  that  fragment  of  evolu- 
tion which  falls  within  the  experience  of  our  senses,  and 
to  which  we  limit  the  term  and  meaning  of  nature,  is 
manifestly  not  a  complete  or  whole  science,  because  it 
is  out  of  the  reach  of  it  to  correlate  what  nevertheless 
must  be  held  together  and  must  be  relatable  and  re- 
lated, —  as,  for  example,  necessity  and  freedom,  or 
organism  and  personality.  At  any  rate,  Christianity 
from  the  beginning  seemed  to  see  how  the  natural 
creation  terminated  in  man,  as  man  through  spiritual 
creation  is  to  terminate  in  Christ.  The  Adam  of  St. 
Paul  is  only  humanity  as  end  of  the  old,  as  Christ  is 
humanity  as  beginning  and  end  of  the  new,  the  spiritual 
which  as  higher  natural  was  predestined  from  the  be- 
ginning to  supplement  and  complete  the  natural.  And 
(3)  Jesus  Christ  is  the  logos  of  God,  so  far  as  God  is  in 
any  way  whatsoever  revealed  or  expressed  at  all. 

Whatever  be  the  historical  source  and  origin  of  the 
logos-language  of  St.  John,  I  think  enough  has  been 
said  to  show  that  the  truth  which  finds  in  it  its  final 
expression  is  one  legitimately  developed  within  the  New 
Testament  itself.  Christianity  has  its  own  theology, 
cosmology,  and  anthropology,  and  the  unity  of  all  these 
is  the  truth  expressed  in  its  Christology.  We  state  that 
truth  when  we  say  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  logos  at  once 
of  God,  of  the  Cosmos,  and  of  Man.  God,  outside  of 
Himself,  is  revealed  only  in  the  "all  things"  which  we 
call  His  creation.  The  creation,  so  far  as  there  is  any 
end  or  meaning  in  it,  is  interpreted  only  in  man.  The 
final  cause  or  reason  for  being  of  man  finds  no  ade- 


250  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

quate  expression  but  in  Jesus  Christ.  Let  God,  the 
cosmos,  man,  and  Christ,  be  fully  understood  in  the 
light  and  in  terms  of  one  another,  and  we  have  that 
complete  science  which  will  alone  explain  all,  because 
nothing  less  will  include  all.  Let  us  look  rapidly  over 
this  summary  or  summation  of  all  truth  in  Jesus  Christ 
as  logos  of  all. 

The  propriety  of  the  term  Logos  manifests  itself  first 
in  the  fact  that  it  makes  the  principle  or  beginning  of 
things  to  be,  primarily,  what  we  call  intelligence  or 
reason.  I  say  primarily,  because  the  first  principle 
cannot  be  intelligence  only.  Bare  intelligence  does 
not  move  to  action,  has  not  in  itself  as  such  the  impulse 
to  originate.  As  we  must  ascribe  to  the  primum  mo- 
bile the  idea  of  things,  so  must  we  include  in  it  the  feeling 
for  things  which  is  the  condition  of  will  and  activity. 
The  universe  had  its  beginning,  not  only  in  wisdom, 
but  in  love.  But  the  Prologue  before  us  begins  by 
affirming  in  the  very  choice  of  its  key  word  the  ration- 
ality of  the  universe.  Things  are  the  utterance  of 
thought,  and  have  no  existence  outside  of  thought  — 
no  matter  how  substantial  their  reality  within  it. 

In  the  second  place,  the  propriety  of  the  word  Logos 
consists  in  the  manner  in  which  it  distinguishes  the 
principle  of  the  universe  from  God,  while  at  the  same 
time  identifying  it  with  Him.  The  Logos  is  the  ideal 
or  formal  principle  of  things.  It  is  that  which  expresses 
itself  in  them.  But  in  things  as  we  know  them,  while 
in  thought  we  may  distinguish  between  the  formal  and 
the  material  principles,  they  are  in  fact  one  and  indis- 
tinguishable.    In  the  same  way,  when  we  think  of  God 


The  Logos  251 

as  immanent  in  the  universe,  or  as  the  ideal  or  formal 
principle  of  things,  we  are  apt  to  make  Him  so  one  with 
them  and  part  of  them  as  to  be  indistinguishable  from 
them.  This  pantheistic  tendency  is  corrected  or  pre- 
vented in  Christianity  in  its  very  inception  by  recog- 
nizing God  as  immanent  indeed  in  nature  or  in  the 
evolution  of  things,  but  recognizing  Him  in  them  not 
substantially  but  rationally,  as  one  with  them  not  in 
substance  or  being  but  in  reason  or  meaning.  So  we 
say  that  the  universe  is  the  expression  not  of  God  and 
yet  of  God ;  not  of  God  because  not  of  God's  substance 
or  self,  and  yet  of  God  because  of  God's  Logos,  or  His 
thought  and  will  and  activity.  The  Logos  so  under- 
stood is  both  identified  with  and  distinguished  from 
God.  There  is  room  for  full  immanence  without 
sacrifice  of  the  truth  of  transcendence. 

The  Logos  of  our  prologue  justifies  itself  in  this  further 
respect  that,  whereas  in  the  speculation  of  the  world 
there  had  been  more  or  less  of  dualism,  this  summarily 
and  effectually  excludes  it.  Dualism  sees  in  the  matter 
of  the  universe  something  independent  of  its  form. 
Mind  does  not  create  or  originate  matter,  but  only 
shapes  or  forms,  or  informs,  a  matter  existent  inde- 
pendently of  itself.  Even  Leibnitz  could  claim  for 
the  world  only  that  it  was  the  best  possible  out  of  the 
material  available,  a  material  independent  apparently 
of  God  Himself.  The  Logos  of  Christianity  is  not  only 
the  formal  or  informing  principle  within  things,  but 
the  things  themselves  exist  only  within  it  and  are  but 
the  terms  or  symbols  of  its  self-expression.  All  things 
come  into  or  possess  their  being  only  through  the  Logos, 


252  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

and  nothing  enters  into  existence  or  exists  outside  or 
apart  from  it.  There  could  be  no  possible  stronger  or 
plainer  expression  of  what  is  true  in  the  idealistic  as 
contradistinguished  from  the  materialistic  origin  and 
constitution  of  the  universe. 

From  mere  being  or  existence  the  prologue  passes 
at  once  to  the  consideration  of  life;  and  then  as  in- 
stantaneously to  that  which  alone  is  life  indeed,  to  self- 
conscious,  rational,  human  life.  In  the  Logos  is  life, 
and  the  life  is  the  light  of  men.  In  these  words  we  have 
the  subject-matter  of  the  whole  thought  of  St.  John,  or 
rather  the  self-representation  of  Jesus  as  reported  by 
St.  John.  Life  is  the  end,  or  the  highest  and  final 
expression,  of  being;  and  all  being  is  but  the  material 
or  matter  of  life.  But  by  life  is  meant  not  the  lower 
forms  or  stages  of  it,  but  only  what  it  was  destined  to 
become,  and  what  it  actually  becomes  when  it  fulfils 
its  idea.  Thus  vegetable  or  animal  life,  or  even  human 
life  in  the  womb  or  in  infancy  or  in  the  undeveloped 
savage  state,  is  not  yet  life  in  the  most  real  and  essen- 
tial meaning  of  it.  The  essence  of  life  as  taught  and 
manifested  by  our  Lord  is  to  know  and  determine  it- 
self. Life  is  not  truly  life  in  the  supreme  sense  until 
it  is  such  an  object  to  itself  as  will  fully  occupy  and 
exercise  those  powers  of  intelligence,  affection,  will,  and 
freedom  in  which  selfhood  consists.  Any  life  which 
does  not  so  know  itself  as  to  find  in  the  task  of  its  own 
self-fulfilment  the  activity  of  the  rational,  moral,  and 
spiritual  powers  that  make  up  personality,  is  not  yet 
life  in  the  sense  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  condition  of  life, 
then,  is  that  it  shall  know  itself;  the  end  or  fulfilment  of 


The  Logos  253 

life  is  self-realization  through  self-knowledge.  God 
gives  us  in  Christ  to  have  life  in  ourselves;  that  is,  so 
to  know  ourselves  as  the  object  of  our  self-determina- 
tion, and  to  determine  ourselves  in  accordance  with  our 
self-knowledge,  as  that  our  lives  shall  be  our  own. 

The  life  is  the  light  of  men.  We  may  place  the  em- 
phasis first  upon  men;  it  is  the  differentia  of  man  to 
know  life,  to  enter  into  its  meaning,  to  perceive  its 
truth,  to  appreciate  its  beauty,  or  nobility,  to  be  doer 
as  well  as  en j oyer  of  its  good.  To  know  life  is  the 
condition  of  true  living  it.  But  the  emphasis  is  stronger 
upon  life.  The  true  light  of  men,  the  proper  object 
of  human  thought  and  knowledge,  life  itself,  —  what 
it  means  and  what  it  is  to  live.  Life  is  not  made  for 
labour,  but  labour  for  life ;  life  is  not  made  for  science, 
but  science  for  life ;  life  is  not  made  for  service,  but  ser- 
vice for  life;  life  is  not  made  for  sacrifice,  but  sacrifice 
for  life.  All  things,  even  the  highest,  are  but  means 
to  the  one  end  of  life.  Even  the  highest  act  of  not 
receiving  but  giving  life  is  itself  but  the  highest  means 
of  life.  We  can  have  no  higher  end  than  life,  and  when 
we  seek  to  make  it  yet  higher  by  prefixing  "not  our 
own,"  only  the  more  for  not  being  our  own  is  it  also 
our  own.  The  more  it  is  not  our  own  as  end  in  the 
sense  of  motive,  the  more  will  it  be  our  own  as  end  in 
the  sense  of  result.  But  we  may  place  the  emphasis  in 
our  sentence  not  upon  life,  but  upon  the  definite  article 
which  invariably  accompanies  it  not  only  in  St.  John 
himself  but  in  his  report  of  our  Lord.  It  is  not  merely 
life  but  The  Life  that  is  the  light  of  men.  Life  is  not  any 
thing,  or  many  things,  but  one  thing.   There  is  one  spirit. 


254  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

one  law,  one  manifestation  or  expression,  one  realiza- 
tion, and  one  reality  of  it.  In  whatever  form  that  is 
realized  or  expressed,  it  is  the  divine  logos;  because  it 
is  the  thing  expressed,  and  not  merely  the  expression  of 
the  thing,  that  makes  it  the  word  of  God.  Jesus  Christ 
is  supremely  The  Logos,  because  He  alone  is  the  su- 
preme divine  word  or  expression  of  the  One  Life.  But 
even  prior  to  the  historical  manifestation  of  the  life  in 
Christ,  the  life  was  to  be  manifested  to  man  and  to  be 
apprehended  by  him.  To  live  the  life  by  knowing  it 
and  know  it  by  living  it  was  from  the  beginning  his 
differentia  as  man.  The  Logos  in  the  sense  of  God's 
truth  or  reality  of  life  was  eternal,  and  was  always  to  be 
manifested  as  the  light  and  the  life  of  men,  as  that 
which  they  were  to  live  through  knowing,  and  know  in 
order  to  live. 

That  the  light,  which  was  the  divine  truth  or  knowl- 
edge of  life,  for  so  long  and  to  such  an  extent  shone  in 
the  darkness  of  the  world,  and  the  darkness  appre- 
hended it  not,  proves  neither  that  it  was  not  there  to 
be  apprehended  nor  that  the  apprehension  of  it  was 
not  the  proper  task  of  man  as  man.  Darkness  and 
light  are  correlative  things;  darkness  has  meaning  or 
existence  only  where  the  light  with  reference  to  which 
it  is  darkness  is  possible  and  is  the  normal  thing.  The 
darkness  of  the  world  can  mean  only  that  of  humanity, 
because  humanity  alone  is  capable  of  the  light  of  which 
the  darkness  is  the  correlative;  and  to  speak  of  the 
darkness  of  humanity  can  only  mean  that  the  light 
exists  for  it  and  that  its  true  function  is  to  see  or  know 
the   light.     Moreover,   that   darkness   too   should   be 


The  Logos  ^55 

possible,  should  actually  exist,  and  should  precede  the 
light,  so  that  historically  light  should  only  gradually 
shine  out  of  darkness,  is  only  a  part  of  the  universal 
principle  and  working  of  evolution.  And  the  meaning 
of  evolution,  as  interpreted  by  its  final  cause,  or  by  its 
highest  application  and  expression,  is  this:  that  person- 
ality which  is  its  end  is  not  an  original  fact  of  nature, 
but  an  ultimate  act  of  itself.  It  must  become  itself, 
and  it  must  itself  become  itself.  This  being  by  self 
and  for  self,  which  is  the  differentia  and  the  essentia  of 
personality,  as  the  highest  product  and  final  cause  of 
evolution,  exhibits  itself  in  a  lower  and  preparatory- 
way,  even  in  the  evolution  of  evolution  itself.  The 
law  of  all  life,  from  the  lowest  up,  is  that  nothing  is 
made  out  of  hand,  but  that  everything  in  a  sense  makes 
itself  by  its  own  reactions  upon  other  things.  So  life 
through  perpetual  strife  with  environment  makes  itself 
and  rises  in  the  scale  of  being  only  through  its  own 
victories  over  environment.  There  is  no  reason  in 
itself  why  this  should  be  so  in  the  lower  stages  of  evo- 
lution. The  reason  emerges  and  becomes  apparent 
only  in  the  final  stage,  in  the  production  of  that  spiritual 
activity  which  must  be  self-activity  in  order  to  be  itself. 
All  the  self-becoming  of  nature  through  its  own  re- 
actions is  but  preparation  for  and  prophecy  of  the  free- 
dom of  personality  as  end  to  itself  and  cause  of  itself. 

But  not  to  dwell  upon  these  speculations,  the  truth 
and  the  condition  of  rational,  personal,  or  human  life 
is  that  it  shall  know  itself  in  order  to  fulfil  itself,  and 
should  fulfil  itself  through  knowing  itself.  The  very 
fact  of  its  darkness  involves  the  truth  of  its  light.     The 


'^56  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

light  was  always  there  to  be  apprehended.  God's  mean- 
ing, or  truth,  or  predestination,  of  life  was  not  only 
in  His  own  mind  or  reason  from  the  beginning,  but  it 
was  immanent  in  all  the  aeons  of  the  divine  evolution 
of  it.  Light,  or  knowledge  of  himself,  from  the  begin- 
ning awaited  man,  and  man  from  the  beginning 
was  constituted  for  and  could  only  be  consum- 
mated by  self-knowledge  or  in  the  light  of  his  own 
eternal  truth.  To  be  as  we  are  predestined  to  be  it  is 
necessary  that  we  shall  know  even  as  also  we  are  known. 

We  are  now  somewhat  in  possession  of  the  materials 
out  of  which  to  construct  a  connected  view  of  the  divine 
Logos  as  portrayed  by  St.  John.  He  is  first  with  God 
Himself,  as  the  utterance  or  expression  to  Himself  of 
what  we  can  only  in  terms  of  ourselves  designate  as 
His  own  mind  or  reason,  will,  purpose,  and  actualized 
activity.  This  self-expression  of  God,  however,  has 
immediate  reference  to  the  cosmos.  The  Logos  of 
God  is  logos  of  creation,  that  is,  is  final  and  first  cause, 
reason,  and  meaning  of  it;  it  is  the  ideal  and  formal, 
or  informing,  principle  immanent  in  all  creation  and 
working  itself  out  through  it.  The  whole  creation  is 
one  and  means  one  thing.  All  being  or  becoming  is 
for  the  sake  of  life,  and  life  means  only  the  life  that 
knows  and  lives  itself,  rational,  moral,  spiritual,  per- 
sonal life.  The  Logos  is  logos  of  this  life,  and  logos 
of  everything  else,  only  as  everything  else,  as  the  whole 
course  of  nature,  is  preparation  and  part  of  the  life 
which  is  its  end  or  fulfilment. 

Now  this  mind  of  God,  this  ideal  principle  and  final 
cause  of  all  creation,  this  divine  meaning  and  truth  and 


The  Logos  257 

predestination  of  man  as  heir  of  all,  this  consummation 
of  God  Himself  in  all  things  and  of  all  things  in  God, 
our  Prologue  identifies  with  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ. 
This  transcendent  importance  of  the  personality  of  our 
Lord  appears  first  in  the  inevitable  comparison  of  Him 
with  the  man  who  stood  nearest  Him  as  His  forerunner 
and  witness.  The  highest  attainment  and  glory  of  man 
is  to  be  witness  and  to  bear  testimony  to  the  truth ; 
because  the  true  progress  or  elevation  of  man  as  man 
is  to  be  measured  by  his  approach  or  propinquity  to 
the  light,  by  the  force  of  his  drawing  to  self-knowledge 
and  self-fulfilment.  The  light  for  men,  and  men  for 
the  light;  and  the  man  who  is  most  for  the  light  is  the 
most  a  man.  The  light  that  was  always  in  the  world, 
and  that  was  the  light  of  every  man,  was  nevertheless 
the  light  of  each  man  only  as  —  more  or  less  or  not  at 
all  —  each  man  in  his  own  activities  was  for  the  light. 
This  gave  rise  to  the  occasional  appearance  of  individ- 
uals, who  in  the  highest  degree  bore  witness  at  once  to 
man's  capacity  for  the  light  and  to  the  light  itself  as 
ready  to  answer  to  that  capacity.  There  seems  to  have 
been  no  instance  of  a  higher  witness  or  testimony  of 
this  sort  than  in  John  the  Baptist.  And  yet  our  Lord 
is  contrasted  with  John  in  this  respect  and  to  this  ex- 
tent, that  while  John  represents  only  the  highest  wit- 
ness or  testimony  that  humanity  in  itself  can  bear  to 
the  truth,  Jesus  Christ  is  in  Himself  all  the  truth  to 
which  humanity  by  its  own  true  drawing  to  Him  bears 
witness.  The  difference  is  like  that  between  their 
respective  baptisms.  The  one  is  in  reality  all  that  the 
other  can  only  indicate  or  signify. 


258  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

The  light  that  was  in  the  world,  and  that  was  the 
light  of  the  world  because  the  light  of  every  man, — 
however  it  shone  in  darkness,  —  was  to  come,  was 
coming  and  came,  into  the  world  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ.  I  do  not  know  to  what  extent  it  may  be  profit- 
able to  speculate  upon  the  reason  or  the  necessity  of 
such  a  manifestation  of  the  divine  truth  of  life  as  in- 
volved its  incarnation  in  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  our  wis- 
dom to  understand  things  as  they  are,  and  not  always 
to  account  for  why  or  how  they  are.  Any  man  that 
will  know  Jesus  Christ  will  know  that  as  a  matter  of 
fact  He  is  the  truth  of  God  and  himself,  whether  or  no 
he  can  give  a  sufficient  reason  why  or  how  that  truth 
was  so  manifested.  But  the  following  question  suggests 
itself,  and  may  go  a  little  way  toward  satisfying  our 
reason  upon  the  matter: 

Could  sufficient  light  upon  ourselves,  our  life,  and 
our  destiny  have  been  attained  by  ourselves,  without 
the  actual  revelation  to  us  of  all  these  in  Jesus  Christ, 
to  enable  us  so  to  know  as  to  be  able  to  realize  or  fulfil 
ourselves?  But  even  that  is  not  the  whole  question. 
Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  revelation  of  mere  light,  in  the 
sense  of  information  or  instruction;  He  is  not  only  an 
object-lesson  or  example  to  us  of  what  life  is  or  means: 
He  is  not  so  much  a  manifestation  of  the  life,  as  He  is 
the  life  itself  manifested ;  and  He  is  come  into  the  world 
not  to  show  but  to  give  life.  The  deeper  and  larger 
question  then  is:  Could  the  life  that  is  God's,  and  that 
was  Christ's  in  our  nature,  be  ours  if  it  had  not  so  come 
as  it  did  in  Jesus  Christ .?  There  is  a  great  distance 
between   a   mere   representative   knowledge    of   what 


The  Logos  259 

Christ  objectively  means  to  us  and  a  real  knowledge 
of  what  Christ  subjectively  and  actually  is  in  us.  The 
reason  or  necessity  of  such  a  coming  to  us  and  in  us  of 
the  life  itself  as  Christianity  holds  and  Christianity  is, 
can  only  be  made  apparent  by  yet  deeper  conceptions 
of  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  To  that  our  remaining 
chapters  shall  be  given;  let  us  now  complete  the  study 
of  our  Prologue. 

When  the  Logos  came  into  the  worid.  He  came  to 
His  own.  He  by  whom  it  was,  and  for  whom  it  was, 
could  surely  best  claim  it  as  such.  When  He  came 
into  humanity,  He  came  in  a  yet  closer  sense  to  His 
own.  Surely,  if  there  be  any  ownership;  if  the  sheep 
are  his  own  to  the  shepherd;  if  the  wife  is  his  own  to 
the  husband,  whose  flesh  and  whose  self  she  is,  —  men 
are  His  own  to  Him  not  only  by  whom  they  are  and 
live,  but  who  is  to  them  the  divine  expression  and 
reality  of  their  own  truth,  perfection,  and  blessedness. 
And  yet  men  apprehend  Him  not,  receive  Him  not, 
can  abide  to  be  without  Him.  But  to  them  that  know, 
accept,  and  possess  Him,  He  is  the  truth  and  life  of 
themselves,  because  He  is  the  truth  and  life  of  God  in 
themselves  and  of  themselves  in  God.  This  it  is  to  be 
children  of  God,  who  are  born,  not  of  blood,  nor  of  the 
will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God.  By 
the  Word  and  the  Spirit,  by  the  divine  act  of  God 
Himself  as  He  comes  to  us  and  in  us,  we  are  bom 
into  the  life  that  is  God's,  and  was  Christ's  and  is 
ours. 


XXI 

THE  INCARNATION 

The  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  Christ  consists  in  the  fact, 
and  our  apprehension  of  it  is  measured  by  our  appre- 
ciation of  the  fact,  that  it  is  expressible  equally  in  terms 
of  man  and  of  God.  On  the  human  side  our  Lord  is 
the  very  fact  and  the  very  act  and  the  very  truth  of 
humanity  itself.  We  think  most  truly  of  Him  when 
we  see  in  Him  the  most  exact  truth  of  ourselves,  and 
consequently  when  we  express  Him  in  most  exact 
terms  of  ourselves.  Whatever  He  was  or  did  in  the 
name  or  in  behalf  of  humanity,  humanity  itself  did  and 
became  in  His  person.  If  He  was  our  atonement  with 
God,  it  is  because  humanity  in  Him  at-one-d  itself 
with  God  by  the  one  possible  act,  and  in  the  one  pos- 
sible way,  of  self-reconciliation  and  reunion.  If  He 
was  our  redemption  from  sin,  it  is  because  humanity 
in  Him,  by  the  one  possible  attitude  toward  it  and  the 
one  possible  victory  over  it,  put  away  sin  from  it  and 
took  to  it  the  holiness  of  God.  If  He  was  our  resur- 
rection and  our  eternal  life,  it  is  because  humanity 
subject  in  itself  to  the  law  of  sin  and  death  arose  in  Him 
from  the  death  of  sin  into  the  life  of  holiness  and  God. 
That  is  to  say,  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  Christ  viewed 
as  a  single  and  complete  act  must  be  interpreted  not 

260 


The  Incarnation  261 

merely  as  an  act  of  humanity,  but  as  the  one  act  by 
which  humanity  could  and  did  bring  itself  to  God, 
make  itself  one  with  Him,  redeem  itself  from  sin,  and 
raise  itself  from  death.  Only  through  that  one  act  can 
humanity  be  saved,  because  that  is  the  one  act  the  per- 
forming of  which  is  the  holiness,  righteousness,  and 
life,  in  which  its  salvation  consists.  He  was  our  atone- 
ment through  the  actual  making  us  at  one  with 
God  in  an  act  which  was  per  se  the  accomplishing  of 
just  that  thing.  He  was  our  redemption  by  the  actual 
breaking  of  the  bonds  of  the  slavery  to  sin  from  which 
we  could  not  liberate  ourselves.  He  was  our  resurrec- 
tion and  our  life  through  a  life-long  act  in  which  our 
own  life  in  Him,  having  overcome  sin,  actually  raised 
itself  also  from  death. 

But  the  more  perfectly  we  interpret  the  life  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  terms  of  human  action  and  human  attainment, 
the  more  certain  does  it  appear  that  it  must  be  only  a 
one-sided  and  half-way  interpretation.  As  surely  as 
that  life  was,  from  beginning  to  end  and  through 
and  through,  an  act  wrought  by  humanity  in  God, 
just  so  surely  and  so  completely  was  it  an  act 
wrought  by  God  in  humanity.  Just  so  truly  as  Jesus 
Christ  was  humanity  in  God  so  truly  also  was  he  God 
in  humanity.  The  perfection  of  each  half  of  the  truth 
depends  upon  the  perfection  of  the  other  half.  When 
we  get  up  to  the  truth  at  this  height  we  see  more 
clearly  than  ever  the  impossibility  of  limiting  the 
humanity  which  is  one  side  of  the  nature  of  our  Lord 
to  that  of  an  individual  man,  instead  of  recognizing 
in  it  the  common  and  universal  nature  of  us  all ;  of  see- 


262  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

ing  in  Him  one  man  instead  of  all  men  made  one  with 
God,  set  free  from  sin,  and  raised  up  from  death.  But 
the  very  universality  as  well  as  the  very  complete- 
ness and  perfection  of  our  Lord's  humanity  is  the 
incontestable  and  conclusive  proof  to  us  of  His  co- 
equal deity.  The  incarnation  was  not  for  the  pur- 
pose of  exhibiting  Godhead  but  of  redeeming  and 
completing  manhood,  and  the  perfection  of  humanity 
in  Jesus  Christ  was  the  best  and  truest  manifestation 
of  deity  in  Him. 

While,  however,  it  is  primarily  in  the  interest  of  our 
Lord's  humanity  that  we  are  compelled  at  last  to 
recognize  equally  His  divinity,  it  is  no  less  in  the  in- 
terest too  of  our  highest  conception  and  knowledge  of 
God  Himself  that  we  should  do  so.  It  shall  be  the 
object  of  this  chapter  to  do  two  things.  The  first  shall 
be  to  aflSrm  as  strongly  as  is  possible  the  whole  phenom- 
enon of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  most  absolute  terms  of  His 
Godhead.  God  was  in  Christ,  doing  in  humanity  all 
that  Christ  did,  being  in  humanity  all  that  Christ  was 
—  so  that,  for  the  time  being,  we  shall  wholly  abstract 
our  thought  from  any  consideration  of  the  human 
activity  and  concentrate  it  upon  the  divine  activity 
that  wrought  in  Him  for  the  salvation  of  men.  The 
second  thing  we  propose  is  to  prove  that  the  comple- 
tion and  perfection  of  the  conception  and  appreciation 
of  God  Himself  is  dependent  upon  the  truth  of  His 
most  real  and  actual  incarnation  in  Jesus  Christ. 

With  regard  to  the  first  point  we  have  only  to  recall 
the  recent  course  of  our  argument.  He  who  is  revealed 
and  expressed  to  us  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  is 


The  Incarnation  263 

He  who  is  eternally  first  and  final  cause  of  all  things, 
and  especially  of  humanity  —  as  that  in  whose  final 
destiny  all  things  shall  come  back  into  God  Himself, 
for  whom  as  well  as  from  whom  they  are.  But  more 
immediately  and  definitely  than  that,  just  what  we  see 
in  the  humanity  itself  of  our  Lord  is  not  what  nature 
is  in  it,  nor  what  it  is  itself  in  its  nature,  through  the 
reason  and  the  freedom  by  which  it  is  the  agent  of  itself; 
but  what  God  is  in  it,  in  the  eternity  of  His  love,  the 
infinitude  of  His  grace,  and  the  perfection  of  His  fellow- 
ship and  communion.  Man  in  Christ  is  what  God 
makes  him,  by  imparting  to  Him  His  Spirit,  conforming 
him  to  His  Thought  or  Will  or  Word,  making  him  par- 
taker of  His  nature  and  liver  of  His  life.  In  Christ, 
God  Himself  is  our  holiness,  our  righteousness,  our 
eternal  life.  In  these  and  many  other  representations 
to  the  same  effect,  our  humanity  and  our  whole  human 
activity  as  manifested  both  in  its  ideal  and  in  its  actual 
perfection  in  our  Lord  is  expressed  so  absolutely  in 
terms  of  God  and  not  of  ourselves,  that  it  becomes 
diflficult  to  human  apprehension  to  see  anything  but 
God  or  anything  of  ourselves  in  Him  at  all.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  go  further  on  this  line,  or  longer  to  insist 
upon  the  (only  seeming)  paradox  that  the  one  truth  of 
God's  absolute  self-realization  in  humanity  through 
Christ  in  no  wise  contradicts,  but  only  explains,  man's 
absolute  self-realization  in  God  through  Christ.  In 
other  words,  the  perfect  deity  of  our  Lord  and  His 
complete  humanity,  so  far  from  mutually  excluding, 
on  the  contrary  mutually  confirm  and  establish  each 
other. 


264  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

Our  second  position  is,  that  Christianity  will  always 
hold,  as  essential  to  its  life,  to  the  truth  at  its  highest,  of 
the  incarnation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  not  alone  for 
the  completeness  of  our  own  salvation,  or  in  the  in- 
terest of  our  human  redemption  and  completion  in 
Christ,  but  no  less  in  the  interest  of  our  adequate  and 
perfect  conception  of  God.  To  put  the  case  briefly, 
and  afterwards  justify  it  at  length,  —  as  true  as  it  is 
to  us  that  man  would  never  be  man  without  the  full 
truth  of  God's  self-realization  in  him,  even  so  true  is  it 
that  God  would  never  be  God  to  us  without  the  very 
fullest  reality  of  His  incarnation  in  us.  To  put  the 
truth  in  yet  plainer  and  stronger  form,  —  so  far  as  God 
is  in  the  world  of  our  experience  and  is  our  God,  the 
supreme  fact  which  we  call  the  Incarnation,  and  the 
supreme  act  in  incarnation  which  we  call  the  Atone- 
ment, the  Redemption,  or  the  Resurrection,  were  no 
more  necessary  to  make  man  man,  than  they  were 
necessary  to  make  God  God.  I  repeat  that  as  in  the 
evolution  of  nature  and  of  humanity,  man  became  man, 
in  the  highest,  through  the  act  and  in  the  person  of 
Jesus  Christ,  so  —  relatively  to  us,  in  the  world  and  in 
relation  to  mankind  as  heir  and  interpreter  of  the  world 
—  God  became  God  to  us  through  the  act  and  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  saw  how  Jesus  Christ 
was  Logos  of  creation  and  of  humanity,  both  of  which 
come  to  their  truth  and  meaning  in  Him  in  the  end, 
as  He  was  the  truth  and  meaning  of  them  in  the  begin- 
ning. We  have  now  to  see  how  He  is  Logos  not  only 
of  creation,  natural  and  spiritual,  but  of  God  Himself 
as  expressed  through  these.     That  is  to  say,  it  is  only 


The  Incarnation  265 

in  Him  that  God  not  merely  manifests  what  He  is, 
but  in  His  activity  and  self-expression  through  crea- 
tion becomes  what  He  is.  What  God  is,  and  all  that 
God  is,  is  not  an  abstraction  of  thought,  nor  is  it  ex- 
pressible merely  in  words.  It  exists  and  can  be  known 
only  in  acts.  Now,  which  are  the  divine  acts  in  crea- 
tion that  the  most  fully  reveal  God  and  are  God  ?  Is 
God  all  God,  in  the  complete  conception  of  Him,  in 
the  mere  material  or  natural  order  of  the  universe .''  If 
He  were  nothing  more  than  substance,  or  energy,  or 
cause,  in  a  mechanical  construction  of  the  universe, 
would  He  be  our  God  ?  Can  eternity  or  immensity  or 
infinity  or  the  sum  of  all  physical  attributes  contain  or 
express  Him?  It  is  only  as  we  pass  from  the  world 
of  mere  necessity  or  natural  order  into  that  of  moral 
order  that  God  begins  to  appear  in  those  higher  at- 
tributes and  activities  which  are  more  expressive  of 
Himself.  The  law  of  wills  or  of  freedom  is  a  higher 
law  than  the  law  of  things  or  of  necessity,  and  it  is  no 
less  actual  or  real  a  law.  Righteousness  is  as  much  a 
fact  as  gravitation  or  evolution,  and  the  God  who  is 
righteousness  is  more  God  than  one  who  is  nothing 
more  than  energy.  But  a  God  who  is  a  power  distinctly 
and  distinctively  not  ourselves,  who  stands  over  against 
us  as  a  law  to  us  and  over  us,  is  not  yet  all  our  God. 
At  most  He  is  our  Lord  or  Master,  and  we  are  His 
obedient  or  disobedient  servants.  We  may  know  His 
will  but  not  Him,  so  long  as  He  is  outside  of  us  and  we 
of  Him.  It  is  only  a  God  in  whom  we  are  and  who 
may  be  in  us,  one  who  can  in  a  unity  of  Spirit  give  Him- 
self to  us  and  take  us  into  Himself,  who  can  be  to  us 


26d  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

and  whom  we  can  know  as  our  God.  When  our  Lord 
said,  The  true  worshippers  shall  worship  the  Father  in 
spirit  and  truth,  —  in  the  first  place,  in  the  very  term 
Father  He  affirms  a  relation  to  God  which  is  not  that 
to  a  mere  creator  or  cause  in  a  natural  order,  nor  that 
to  a  ruler  or  lord  in  a  moral  order,  but  that  of  son  to  a 
father  in  a  spiritual  order.  In  that  last  relation  alone 
is  there  the  possibility  of  the  unity  and  community  of 
spirit,  of  nature,  and  of  life,  which  makes  God  in  the 
truest  and  highest  sense  our  God.  And,  in  the  second 
place,  to  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  truth  means 
the  knowing,  loving,  and  serving  Him  not  in  outward 
observance  of  law  or  obedience  but  in  interior  unity 
and  likeness  of  thought,  affection,  and  will,  or  of  dis- 
position, character,  and  life.  Such  a  relation  or  dis- 
position of  God  to  us  and  of  us  to  Him  involves  a  new 
conception  or  definition  of  Him.  He  is  no  longer 
power  or  wisdom  or  justice,  which  are  but  physical  or 
intellectual  or  moral  expressions  of  Him.  He  is  good- 
ness or  love,  which  is  the  highest  and  last  expression 
or  mode  of  spiritual  being  or  action. 

When  we  say  that  God  is  goodness,  or  God  is  love, 
we  mean  that  He  is  so  not  in  representation  but  in 
reality,  and  not  only  in  inward  sentiment  but  in  out- 
ward action.  To  say  that  God  is  goodness  means  that 
the  universe  is  an  activity  or  process  of  which  goodness 
is  the  sole  principle  and  the  supreme  end.  We  cannot, 
as  with  ourselves,  distinguish  between  the  divine  self- 
representation  or  intention  or  disposition,  and  the 
actual  divine  working  out  of  things.  What  God  is  He 
is  in  the  world  of  things  and  in  the  world  of  ourselves. 


The  Incarnation  267 

That  the  universe  is  goodness  does  not  of  course  mean 
that  it  is  always  and  everywhere  so  in  present  seeming. 
It  can,  in  fact,  seem  good  at  all  only  over  against  a  seem- 
ing of  evil  —  whether  or  no  it  is  necessary  to  go  further 
and  say,  that  it  can  be  good  only  over  against  an  actual- 
ity of  evil.  The  universe  is  goodness  if  its  meaning, 
its  spirit,  its  law,  and  its  end,  are  the  working  out  of 
the  initial  and  ultimate  principle  of  goodness  or  love. 
The  natural  but  superficial  objection  to  its  being  so 
from  the  actuality  of  evil  answers  itself  the  more  effect- 
ually the  more  we  reflect  upon  the  truth  that  goodness 
in  its  highest  and  truest  form  can  come  into  the  world 
only  through  the  overcoming  of  evil. 

The  present  point  is  that,  whatever  God  is  in  Him- 
self eternally,  what  He  is  in  the  world  or  in  us  He  is 
only  in  the  actual  process  of  the  world  and  of  ourselves. 
He  will  actualize  or  realize  Himself,  which  means  that 
He  will  become  all  Himself,  in  the  world  and  in  us, 
only  in  the  totality  and  the  perfection  of  the  world  and 
us.  Whatever,  or  however  much,  God  may  be  in  a 
world  of  as  yet  only  mechanical  motion  and  order,  He 
is  certainly  not  all  Himself,  as  we  define  Him  in  His 
further  and  higher  relations  and  activities.  That  is 
to  say,  unless  we  include  in  these  mere  motions  of  mat- 
ter the  meaning  of  the  future  spirit,  for  which  as  end 
they  exist  as  natural  means  or  conditions.  Whatever, 
moreover,  God  may  be  in  a  world  of  finite  wills  and 
relative  freedom,  as  an  objective  lawgiver  and  law,  of 
necessary  obedience  or  of  personal  righteousness,  cer- 
tainly in  that  relation  or  capacity  He  is  not  the  All 
Himself  that  He  may  be  to  us.     God  is  the  perfect 


268  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

Self  that  He  can  be  to  us  only  in  that  perfection  of 
spiritual  relation  in  which  He  can  be  to  us  the  perfec- 
tion of  goodness  or  love,  —  that  is  to  say,  in  which  He 
can  give  His  whole  self  to  us  and  take  us  completely 
into  Himself.  Then  is  He  our  Father,  and  then  may 
we  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  —  that  is,  in 
unity  of  internal  disposition  and  in  reality  of  oneness 
with  Himself. 

Our  God  must  be  an  incarnate  God,  —  one  with  us 
not  merely  in  immanence  of  nature  but  in  the  personal 
unity  of  a  perfected  spiritual  relation.  He  must  be 
the  God  and  Father  manifested  to  us  in  our  perfect 
sonship  to  Him  in  Jesus  Christ.  But  God  is  fulfilled 
to  us  not  alone  in  His  humanity  in  Jesus  Christ,  but  in 
all  the  details  and  in  the  totality  of  His  human  work 
in  Christ.  And  especially  does  God  become  His  whole 
Self  to  us  in  the  completed  act  which  we  call  the  Cross 
of  Christ.  When  we  spoke  of  that  act  on  its  human 
side  or  as  an  act  of  humanity  in  Christ,  we  described  it 
as  the  consummate  act  in  which  humanity  became  it- 
self through  making  itself  one  with  God.  In  speaking 
of  it  now  on  its  divine  side,  or  as  an  act  of  God  in  hu- 
manity, I  would  describe  it  as  the  consummate  act  in 
which  God,  viewed  in  His  relation  to  the  world  and 
ourselves,  became  God  to  us;  not  merely  manifested  but 
made  Himself  the  whole  or  completed  Self  whom  we 
know  and  worship  as  our  God.  Relatively  to  our- 
selves, I  must  repeat,  in  the  actual  process  of  the  world 
as  it  is,  and  of  ourselves  as  we  are,  God  is  most  God, 
God  becomes  to  us  His  highest  and  most  perfect  Self, 
in  the  supreme  act  in  which  He  is  the  most  complete 


The  Incarnation  269 

realization  and  expression  of  His  own  divinest  nature 
of  love  or  goodness.  It  is,  as  I  have  said,  not  His 
physical  attributes  alone  of  eternity,  immensity,  om- 
niscience, or  omnipotence,  that  make  Him  our  God. 
Neither  is  it  His  moral  attributes  alone,  or  His  objective 
law  to  us,  of  justice  or  righteousness.  What  makes 
Him  the  God  He  is  to  us  is  the  fact  of  His  infinite  good- 
ness and  love,  and  that  fact  becomes  fact  to  us  and  for 
us  and  in  us  only  in  the  act  by  which  in  Jesus  Christ 
He  once  for  all  and  completely  made  Himself  one  with 
us  and  so  made  us  one  with  Himself.  The  purely 
relative  and  one-sided  way  of  speaking  of  God  as  be- 
coming Himself  in  Christ,  since  in  Christ  alone  He 
performs  the  act  of  at-one-ing  Himself  with  the  world 
and  the  world  with  Himself,  in  which  He  is  most  su- 
premely love,  and  therefore  most  supremely  Himself, 
is  supplemented  and  corrected  in  the  New  Testament, 
without  any  diminution  of  the  truth  intended  to  be 
emphasized  by  it.  There,  in  the  eternity  of  Himself, 
or  in  the  timeless  beginning  of  all  things,  God  is  always 
represented  ?s.  ah  initio,  meaning  or  intending  in  Him- 
self all  that  is  to  be  fulfilled  in  the  end,  and  consequently 
as  already  being  in  Himself  all  that,  in  the  actual 
process  of  things  or  of  the  world,  He  is  going  to  become 
in  them.  So,  for  example,  in  the  predestination  of 
humanity  in  the  eternity  of  the  future,  we  have  but  the 
unfolding  of  His  counsel  in  the  eternity  of  the  past. 

Eternal  love  —  in  God  and  as  God  —  defines  itself 
in  the  act  or  process  by  which  it  realizes  or  accom- 
plishes itself.  If  we  could  perfectly  know  love  in  God 
we  should  perfectly  understand  God  in  the  world  and 


270  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

in  ourselves;  —  and  then  we  should  perfectly  know 
Christ,  for  Christ  is  the  self-fulfilment  of  the  divine 
love  in  the  world  and  in  ourselves.  But,  in  our  finite 
apprehension,  we  proceed,  not  a  priori  from  the  knowl- 
edge of  God  to  that  of  love  and  of  Christ,  but  a  poste- 
riori from  the  knowledge  of  Christ  to  that  of  love  and 
so  of  God,  Let  us  in  that  order  endeavour  to  construe 
for  ourselves  the  exact  method  and  operation  of  the 
love  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ.  Perfect  love  in  order  to 
fulfil  itself  needs  to  know  its  object  from  the  beginning 
and  to  the  end.  Not  to  speak  in  abstractions,  let  per- 
fect love  be  God,  and  its  object  be  man,  or  the  creation 
as  fulfilled  in  man.  We  begin  then  necessarily  with 
the  divine  foreknowledge  and  predestination.  Man 
must  be  the  object  of  the  eternal  love-disposition  and 
love-purpose  of  God.  Love  can  will  for  its  object 
nothing  else  or  less  than  its  own  supreme  good,  and  that 
can  mean  only  its  own  completion  or  perfection.  God, 
in  willing  for  man  his  own  or  proper  good,  the  good 
for  which  he  is  constituted  and  which  is  necessary  to 
constitute  him,  wills  for  him  not  only  natural  good,  — 
the  good  of  outward  condition,  —  but  moral  good  and 
spiritual  good  —  the  good  of  his  own  good-will  and  his 
own  right  spirit.  In  other  words,  what  God  wills  for 
man  is  not  a  good  of  environment,  but  the  good  of  his 
own  personal  attitude  toward  and  reaction  with  en- 
vironment. There  is  a  sense  in  which  we  may  even 
say  that  the  worst  environment  is  the  best,  since  it 
demands  and  elicits  the  best  reaction  in  order  to  over- 
come it.  God,  then,  in  willing  for  man  his  own  highest 
good  spiritual,  must  necessarily  will  for  him  the  condi- 


The  Incarnation  271 

tions  necessary  to  the  origination,  exercise,  and  com- 
pletest  development  of  that  good.  The  divine  love 
will  spare  man  nothing  of  the  need,  the  effort,  the  pain, 
the  trial,  which  are  the  awful  cost  of  becoming  his  own 
highest  and  divinest  self.  The  necessity  laid  upon  man 
to  so  become  himself  is  a  necessity  laid  upon  God  to 
let  him  so  become  himself.  What  then  shall  love  do 
for  man  ?  It  shall  certainly  not  save  him  from  the 
supreme  necessity  of  becoming  all  himself;  but  it  shall 
be  with  him  in  so  doing,  in  the  way  and  in  the  degree 
the  most  perfectly  conducive  to  the  end  of  love  which 
is  also  the  end  of  the  man.  God  is  to  us,  then,  first  of 
all,  divinest  sympathy.  He  does  not  exempt  us  from, 
but  He  shares  and  endures  with  us  and  in  us,  all  the 
extremest  conditions  and  experiences  of  human  life 
and  destiny.  His  eternal  love  becomes  infinite  grace, 
which  in  turn  develops  itself  in  us  in  perfect  participa- 
tion or  fellowship.  Man  is  not  saved  from  the  neces- 
sity of  being  man,  nor  yet  from  the  extremest  conditions 
of  his  being  so,  but  he  has  with  him  in  all  the  necessary 
need,  effort,  pain,  of  becoming  himself  the  divine  sym- 
pathy which  means,  not  only  God  with  him  and  in 
him,  but  God  suffering  with  him  and  in  him.  The 
real  sympathy  even  of  man  is  not  only  a  sentiment  in 
him  who  gives  it,  but  a  grace  or  something  imparted,  a 
fellowship  or  self-communicated,  an  actual  help  and 
strength,  to  him  who  receives  it.  What  shall  we  say 
of  him  who  not  only  by  right  but  by  act  of  possession 
has  made  his  own  the  eternal  love,  the  infinite  grace, 
the  self-imparting  fellowship  of  God.  All  this  is  just 
what  Jesus  Christ  not  only  means  but  is,  is  not  merely 


272  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

the  symbol  of  but  the  reality.  It  is  not  enough  to  see 
all  ourselves  in  Him,  unless  we  equally  see  all  God  in 
Him.  It  is  the  actuality  of  that  consummated  relation 
between  God  and  us  that  is  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus. 
But  God  imparts,  communicates  Himself,  is  with  and 
in  us,  in  a  manner  and  degree  of  which  the  most  per- 
fect human  sympathy  is  a  very  faint  image.  If  we 
would  see  all  the  meaning  of  God  with  us  and  in  us, 
we  must  see  it  in  the  human  fulness  of  what  Christ  is. 
In  Him,  from  what  outward  condition  to  which  humanity 
is  exposed  was  humanity  exempt?  Through  what 
weakness  or  want  or  pain  or  effort  or  trial  or  sorrow 
through  which  human  perfection  must  be  attained  was 
He  not  perfected  ?  Yet  what  more  could  God  be  in 
man,  or  could  He  have  been  so  much  in  him,  otherwise 
than  through  the  conditions  and  activities  of  his  own 
manhood  ? 

But  —  and  this  is  the  point  to  which  our  present 
argument  brings  us  —  when  man  through  the  perfect 
love  and  grace  and  fellowship  of  God  in  Christ  has  at 
last  become  himself  in  all  the  fulness  of  his  divine  pre- 
destination, has  not  also  God  in  the  consummated  act 
of  His  own  love  and  grace  and  self-fulfilment  in  man 
realized  that  in  which  in  the  highest  His  selfhood  con- 
sists, and  by  that  fact  become  His  own  highest  Self  in 
the  world  and  in  us  ?  We  speak  of  the  incredible  and 
impossible  self-lowering  or  self-emptying  of  God  in 
becoming  man  or  in  undergoing  the  death  of  the  cross. 
Is  the  act  in  which  love  becomes  perfect  a  contradic- 
tion or  a  compromise  of  the  disdne  nature?  Is  God 
not  God  or  least  God  in  the  moment  in  which  He  is 


The  Incarnation  273 

most  love?  Where  before  Christ,  or  otherwise  than 
in  Christ,  in  whom  He  humbled  Himself  to  become 
man,  and  then  humbled  Himself  with  and  in  man  to 
suffer  what  man  must  needs  suffer  in  order  to  become 
what  God  would  fain  make  him  —  and  the  highest  and 
best  that  even  God  can  make  him  —  I  say  where 
before  Christ,  or  where  now  otherwise  than  in  Christ 
and  in  the  cross  of  the  divine  suffering  together  with 
and  for  man,  where  in  all  the  story  of  the  universe  was 
or  is  love  so  love,  or  God  so  God ! 


XXII 

THE  TRINITY 

The  truth  takes  its  own  forms  and  expresses  itself 
in  its  own  ways.  Our  efforts  at  defining,  proving,  or 
establishing  it  are  all  acts  after  the  event.  It  is  what 
it  is,  and  not  what  we  make  it.  Christianity  prevails 
in  the  world  in  a  fact  which  we  have  called  Trinity, 
and  which  is  Trinity,  however  inadequate  and  unsatis- 
factory our  explanations  of  the  term  or  our  analyses  of 
the  thing  may  be.  I  would  describe  Christianity  in 
its  largest  sense  to  be  the  fulfilment  of  God  in  the  world 
through  the  fulfilment  of  the  world  in  God.  This 
assumes  that  the  world  is  completed  in  man,  in  whom 
also  God  is  completed  in  the  world.  And  so,  God, 
the  world,  and  man  are  at  once  completed  in  Jesus 
Christ  —  who,  as  He  was  the  logos  or  thought  of  all  in 
the  divine  foreknowledge  of  the  past,  so  also  is  He  the 
teles  or  end  of  all  in  the  predestination  of  the  future. 
That  is  to  say,  the  perfect  psychical,  moral,  and  spiritual 
manhood  of  which  Jesus  Christ  is  to  us  the  realization 
and  the  expression  is  the  end  of  God  in  creation,  or  in 
evolution.  I  hold  that  neither  science,  philosophy, 
nor  religion  can  come  to  any  higher  or  other,  either 
conjecture  or  conclusion,  than  that.  But  now,  when 
we  come  to  the  actual  terms  or  elements  of  God's  self- 

274 


The  Trinity  %15 

realization  in  us  and  ours  in  Him,  we  cannot  think  or 
express  the  process  otherwise  than  in  the  threefold 
form  of  the  divine  love,  the  divine  grace,  and  the  divine 
fellowship,  in  operation  or  action.  Putting  it  into 
scriptural  phrase,  we  speak  as  exactly  as  popularly  in 
defining  the  matter  of  the  Gospel  to  be,  The  love  of  the 
Father,  the  grace  of  the  Son,  and  the  fellowship  of  the 
Spirit.  As  our  spiritual  life  is  dependent  upon  each 
and  all  of  these  three  constituents,  so  we  can  know  God 
at  all  only  as  we  know  Him  in  the  actual  threefold 
relation  to  us  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit. 

The  first  element  in  the  essential  constitution  of  the 
Gospel  is  the  fact  in  itself  that  God  is  love.  That  God 
is  love  means  that  He  is  so  not  only  in  Himself  but  in 
every  activity  that  proceeds  from  Him.  The  very 
phrase  The  love  of  the  Father  expresses  the  whole 
principle  of  the  universe.  That  God  is  Father  means 
that  it  is  His  nature,  or  His  essential  activity,  to  repro- 
duce Himself,  to  produce  in  all  other  that  which  He 
Himself  is.  That  God  in  Himself  is  love  carries  with 
it  the  truth  that  from  the  beginning  all  things  else  mean, 
and  are  destined  to  come  to,  love  in  the  end.  The 
mystery  on  the  way  that  somehow  light  must  come  out 
of  darkness,  that  love  must  needs  conquer  hate,  and 
that  in  everything  good  seems  to  be  only  the  final  and 
far  off  goal  of  ill,  may  puzzle  us  but  it  does  not  disturb 
the  principle  itself.  When  we  come  to  enter  fairly 
upon  the  evolution  of  the  future,  the  higher  not  merely 
psychical  or  social  or  moral  but  spiritual  life  and  des- 
tiny of  man,  all  the  truth  gradually  dawns  upon  us  in 
the  following  discoveries,  which  are  already  established 


276  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

facts  of  spiritual  experience:  The  truth  of  all  spirit  is 
love;  the  matter  of  all  law  is  goodness;  God  is  not 
creator  or  cause  only,  nor  lord  or  lawgiver  only,  but 
Father  of  all  things,  since  all  things  through  man  are 
destined  to  share  His  spirit,  to  be  partakers  of  His 
nature,  and  to  reproduce  Himself  as  Father  in  them- 
selves as  children.  In  order  to  be  sons  of  God  through 
actual  participation  in  the  divine  nature  there  stands 
in  the  way  indeed  the  need  of  a  mighty  redemption 
from  sin  and  an  as  yet  far  off  completion  in  holiness ; 
but  no  matter  how  unredeemed  or  incomplete,  we  know 
beyond  further  question  that  all  our  salvation  lies  in 
redemption  and  completion,  and  that  we  shall  be  our- 
selves and  the  world  will  come  to  its  meaning  only  when 
the  self-realization  of  God  as  Father  shall  have  accom- 
plished itself  in  our  self-realization  as  His  children. 
If  we  knew  the  fact  only  that  God  in  Himself  is  love, 
it  would  be  to  us  a  gospel  indeed  of  great  joy,  because 
it  would  carry  in  it  the  assurance  of  the  highest  good, 
whatever  that  might  be.  But  it  would  be  but  a  partial 
gospel,  and  in  fact  only  a  gospel  at  all  through  its  cer- 
tainty of  proceeding  further. 

The  phrase  Grace  of  the  Son  expresses  that  which 
perfectly  complements  and  completes  all  that  is  meant 
by  the  Love  of  the  Father.  What  is  Fatherhood  with- 
out a  correlative  Sonship  ?  And  what  is  all  love  even 
in  God  as  its  subject  apart  from  its  actuality  and  activity 
as  grace  in  man  as  its  object?  The  divine  propriety 
of  the  terms  Father  and  Son  as  applied  to  God  cannot 
be  too  much  magnified.  The  distinction  between  God 
as  He  is  in  Himself  and  God  as  He  is  in  all  possible 


The  Trinity  277 

expressions  of  Himself  is  one  that  we  cannot  think  Him 
at  all  without  making.  The  most  perfect  expression 
of  love  is  contained  in  the  statement,  that  Love  loves 
love.  Its  nature  is  to  produce,  to  reproduce,  to  mul- 
tiply itself.  Itself  is  forever  the  true  object  of  itself, 
at  the  same  time  that  it  is  ever  a  going  forth  from 
itself  into  that  which  is  not  itself.  This  essential  prin- 
ciple of  love  or  self-reproduction  is  what  makes  God 
eternally  Father.  But  the  eternal  Fatherhood  is  actual- 
ized only  in  an  eternal  Sonship.  Nothing  proceeds 
from  the  Father  which  is  not  reproduction  of  the  Father, 
and  is  not  therefore  Son.  Man  sees  himself  now  in 
nature  and  destinature  son  of  God.  He  feels  his  call 
and  obligation  to  fulfil  God  in  him  as  Father  by  realiz- 
ing himself  in  God  as  son.  His  spiritual  end  and  im- 
pulse is  to  know  as  also  he  is  known,  to  love  in  return 
as  he  is  first  loved,  to  apprehend  that  for  which  he  is 
apprehended  of  God  in  Christ.  In  proportion  as  he 
finds  the  meaning  and  truth  of  his  own  being  in 
the  reproduction  of  God,  in  being  son  of  God,  he 
finds  the  meaning  and  truth  of  the  whole  creation 
realized  and  expressed  in  his  own  sonship  as  heir  of  all 
and  end  of  all.  And  in  proportion  again  as  he  thus 
finds  all  things  meaning  and  ending  in  sonship,  he 
comes  at  last  to  see  God  Himself  as  realized  in  the 
universal  sonship  —  Himself  therein  realized  as  Eternal 
Father.  So  it  is  that  in  Jesus  Christ  we  see  everything 
expressed,  because  everything  realized  or  fulfilled.  He 
is  all  truth,  because  He  is  the  truth  of  all  things  —  God, 
Creation,  Man.  And  because  He  is  thus  truth  and 
expression  of  all.  He  is  Logos  of  all.     What  else  could 


278  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

the  Logos  of  all  be  but  Son,  or  the  Son  but  Logos? 
What  could  perfectly  express  God  but  that  which  is  the 
perfect  reproduction  of  Himself,  or  what  is  perfect 
sonship  but  perfect  likeness  ? 

The  Grace  of  the  Son  is  the  divine  gift  of  sonship. 
How  could  we  have  known  God  only  in  Himself? 
How  could  God  have  been  actually  our  Father  without 
the  actuality  of  our  sonship  to  Him  ?  And  could  we 
have  known,  could  we  have  wanted,  could  we  have 
willed,  could  we  have  accomplished  or  attained  our 
sonship  without  the  gift  or  grace  of  sonship  in  Jesus 
Christ  ?  God,  we  are  told,  predestinated  us  unto  son- 
ship  through  Jesus  Christ  unto  himself.  He  pre- 
destinated us  to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  His 
Son,  that  He  might  be  the  first  bom  among  many 
brethren.  In  bringing  many  sons  to  glory.  He  gave 
to  us  a  Captain  of  our  salvation,  an  Author  ajid 
Finisher  of  the  faith  of  sonship  and  so  of  the  sonship 
of  faith,  who  was  Himself  perfected  as  Son  through 
the  sufferings  that  are  necessary  to  the  perfecting  of 
sonship  in  us.  We  see  in  Jesus  Christ  all  that  is 
meant,  involved,  or  implied,  in  the  fact  that  He  is  the 
divine  Fatherhood  realized  and  expressed  in  human 
sonship. 

If  that  fact,  viewed  in  its  totality,  signifies  not  only  a 
human  act,  nor  only  a  divine  act,  but  a  divine-human 
act,  an  act  of  God  in  man  which  is  equally  an  act  of 
man  in  God,  —  then  we  say  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not 
only  as  well  the  humanity  as  the  divinity  in  that  act, 
but  He  is  the  divinity  as  well  as  the  humanity.  He  is 
not  only  the  gratia  gratiata  in  it  but  the  gratia  gratians 


The  Trinity  279 

—  not  only  the  manhood  infinitely  graced  but  the  God- 
head infinitely  gracing. 

Jesus  Christ  is  therefore  to  us  no  mere  sample  or 
example  of  divine  sonship.  He  is  no  mere  one  man 
who  more  successfully  than  others  has  grasped  and 
expressed  the  ideal  of  a  divine  sonship.  Neither  is  He 
a  single  individual  of  our  race  whom  God  has  elected 
from  among  equally  possible  others,  in  whom  as  mere 
revelation  or  example  to  all  others  to  manifest  the  truth 
of  God  in  man  and  man  in  God.  On  the  contrary, 
Jesus  Christ  is  Himself  the  reality  of  all  that  is  mani- 
fested or  expressed  in  Him.  He  is  as  God  the  grace 
communicating  and  as  man  the  grace  communicated. 
He  is  both  Generator  and  generated  with  reference  to 
the  life  incarnate  in  Him  —  both  the  sonship  eternally 
in  God  to  be  begotten  and  the  sonship  actually  begotten 
in  man.  As  He  was  in  the  beginning  with  God  and 
was  God,  so  is  He  universally  with  man  and  is  uni- 
versal man. 

When  we  have  thus  adequately  conceived  Christ  as 
the  universal  truth  and  reality  of  ourselves,  and  in 
ourselves  of  all  creation,  and  in  creation  and  ourselves 
of  God,  then  we  are  prepared  for  the  conclusion  that 
we  know  God  at  all,  or  are  sons  to  Him  as  our  Father, 
or  are  capable  in  that  relation  of  partaking  of  His 
nature  or  entering  into  His  Spirit  or  living  His  life, 
only  in  and  through  Jesus  Christ;  because  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  incarnation  or  human  expression  to  us  of 
the  whole  Logos  of  God  —  that  is  to  say,  of  God  Him- 
self as  in  any  way  whatever  knowable  or  communicable. 
We  cannot  get  at  God  to  know  or  possess  Him  other- 


280  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

wise  than  as  He  reveals  and  imparts  Himself;  and  He 
reveals  Himself  through  His  own  Word  and  imparts 
Himself  in  His  own  Son.  There  and  there  alone  is  He 
to  be  known,  and  there  He  is  all  our  own.  The  l>ogos 
who  is  the  eternal  Self-revelation  of  God  manifests 
Himself  as  ideal  principle,  first  and  final  cause,  meaning 
and  end,  of  creation ;  and  the  end  of  the  whole  creation 
which  manifests  God  is  realized  through  spiritual 
humanity  in  the  imparted  sonship  of  the  Everlasting 
Son  of  the  Father. 

There  is  yet  one  other  condition  of  truly  knowing 
or  really  possessing  God  as  wholly  our  God.  As  God 
is  unknowable  and  incommunicable  but  through  Christ, 
so  is  Christ,  however  perfectly  He  is  in  Himself  the 
self-revelation  and  self-communication  of  God,  not 
so  to  us  but  through  the  coequal  action  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  There  is  no  knowledge  of  God  in  Himself 
only,  there  is  no  knowledge  of  God  in  creation  only, 
or  in  others,  or  even  in  Christ  only,  without  the  answer- 
ing knowledge  of  God  in  ourselves  also.  It  is  only  like 
that  answers  to  like.  The  deep  that  answers  to  deep 
must  be  the  same  deep.  Jesus  Christ  expected  in 
every  son  of  man  not  only  the  answer  of  the  man  in 
him  to  Himself  as  eternal  and  universal  Son  of  man, 
but  the  answer  of  the  God  in  him  to  the  perfect  God- 
head in  Himself.  Ye  cannot  see  God  in  me.  He  says, 
because  ye  have  not  God  in  you.  No  man  cometh 
unto  me  except  the  Father  draw  Him.  I  do  not  wish 
to  urge  the  mere  conventional  language  of  Christianity, 
true  as  I  believe  it  and  helpful  as  I  may  find  it  to  my- 
self.    I  would  if  possible  speak  in  the  common  language 


The  Trinity  281 

of  common  experience.  When  we  speak  of  knowing 
God,  and  having  God,  it  must  mean  knowing  Him 
where  He  is  to  be  known  and  having  Him  as  He  is  to 
be  had.  Now,  whatever  God  is  in  Himself,  He  is 
knowable  to  us  only  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  He  can  be 
our  God  only  as  He  is  conceived  in  us  by  the  operation 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  and  born  of  the  want  which  He 
implants  and  the  faith  which  He  generates. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  ordinarily  thought  of 
as  the  very  extreme  of  speculative  reasoning  upon  the 
nature  of  God.  But  let  us  remember  that  practical 
faith  in  the  Trinity  antedated  any  speculative  thought 
or  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  And  behind  that  faith  the 
fact  itself  of  the  Trinity  is  all  that  makes  God  knowable 
by  us  or  us  capable  of  knowing  God.  Before  there 
was  the  word  Trinity,  the  new  world  of  Christianity 
had  come  to  know  God  in  Christ,  and  to  know  Christ 
in  itself.  The  entire  doctrine  developed  out  of  that 
actual  experience  was  nothing  but  a  positive  affirma- 
tion and  a  determined  defence  of  the  fulness  of  the 
truth  of  God  in  Christ  and  Christ  in  us.  We  can  do 
no  better  than  conclude  this  entire  exposition  of  the 
Gospel  with  an  interpretation  of  it  in  the  only  terms  in 
which  it  is  expressible,  viz. :  in  terms  of  the  Trinity. 

We  have  to  do  now  with  the  Trinity,  not  as  matter 
of  doctrine  nor  as  object  of  faith,  but  as  fact  in  itself. 
But  at  the  same  time  we  neither  forget  nor  minimize 
the  essential  Christian  conviction  that  the  fact  of  the 
Trinity  through  the  actual  operation  of  God's  Word 
and  Spirit  has  been  so  made  matter  of  spiritual  observa- 
tion and  experience  as  to  be  legitimate  object  of  faith 


282  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

and  material  for  doctrine.  Our  object  at  present, 
however,  is  not  to  define  God  but  to  define  the  Gospel, 
and  our  contention  is  that  the  Gospel  is  definable  in 
facts  that  taken  together  make  up  the  truth  of  the 
Trinity. 

The  first  condition  and  constituent  of  the  Gospel  is 
the  fact  that  God  in  Himself  is  love.  How  do  we  know 
that  God  is  love  ?  I  believe  that  actually  or  historically 
we  know  it  in  Christ  in  whom  the  fact  of  the  divine 
love  is  consummated  and  manifested.  But  in  the  light 
now  of  Christianity  I  believe  that  it  is  also  philosoph- 
ically demonstrable  that  goodness  or  love  is  the  essen- 
tial principle  and  the  ultimate  end  of  the  universe. 
How  God  is  love,  not  only  in  antecedent  nature  but  in 
the  actuality  of  self-fulfilment  in  the  world,  may  be 
readable  too  in  nature,  —  after  the  light  thrown  upon 
it  by  Christianity,  —  but  in  fact  it  is  known  in  its 
reality  only  in  Christ.  Love  is  no  more  in  God  than  in 
us  an  abstract  disposition  or  affection.  All  the  love 
we  know  is  in  concrete  relations  and  the  forms  of  affec- 
tion determined  by  the  character  of  those  relations. 
Human  love  is  marital,  parental,  filial,  etc.  —  out  to  the 
wider  and  widest  forms  of  national,  racial,  and  human 
affinity  and  affection.  The  concrete  form  in  which 
alone  we  can  know  God  as  love  is  expressed  by  our 
designation  of  Him  as  eternal  Father.  That  gives 
shape  and  definiteness  to  not  only  our  conception,  but 
the  reality  itself  of  His  relation  to  us  and  ours  to  Him, 
and  no  less  of  how  that  relation  is  to  be  fulfilled.  The 
full  reality  of  fatherhood  comes  about  in  actuality  only 
in  the  full  realization  of  sonship,  and  that  therefore 


The  Trinity  283 

must  be  God's  meaning  and  end  for  all  that  is  in  the 
universe  of  His  self-expression.  We  begin  so  to  antici- 
pate the  truth  that  is  to  be  expressed  in  such  statements 
as  that  God  has  foreordained  or  predestined  us  to 
sonship  through  Jesus  Christ  unto  Himself,  that  God 
has  foreordained  us  to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of 
His  Son,  and  many  others  to  the  same  effect.  But 
before  we  come  to  these  unfoldings  of  the  divine  nature 
and  purpose,  let  us  reflect  upon  the  following  ante- 
cedent truth. 

The  beginning  of  all  distinction  between  a  panthe- 
istic and  a  theistic  conception  of  the  world  lies  in  recog- 
nizing the  world  as  the  expression,  not  of  God  Himself 
—  or,  as  we  say,  "  of  His  substance,"  —  but  of  His 
Logos,  His  Thought,  Will,  Word.  The  Logos  of  God, 
then,  is  not  God  (o  ^e6s) ;  we  distinguish  Him.  And 
yet  certainly  the  Logos  is  God  {Bibi) ;  we  identify  Him. 
Moreover,  when  once  we  have  conceived  and  accepted 
God  as  eternal  Father,  we  are  in  position  to  assume 
that  the  Logos,  not  merely  as  the  principle  of  the  divine 
self-expression  but  as  God  Himself  self-expressed, 
must  manifest  Himself  universally  as  Son  or  in  sonship ; 
since  universal  and  everlasting  Sonship  is  the  only  self- 
expression  of  eternal  and  essential  Fatherhood. 

The  first  constituent,  therefore,  of  the  Gospel  is  the 
fact  in  itself  of  the  divine  Love  in  Fatherhood.  The 
second  is,  the  equal  fact  in  itself  of  the  actualization 
of  the  dixnne  Fatherhood  in  creature  —  or,  definitely, 
in  human  —  Sonship.  The  love  of  the  Father  fulfils 
and  manifests  itself  in  the  grace  of  the  Son.  Love  is 
grace  potentid;  Grace  is  love  actu,  —  just  as  Fatherhood 


284  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

itself  is  Sonship  potential,  and  Sonship  is  Fatherhood 
actualized.  When  we  have  once  seen  all  humanity 
perfected  as  son  in  Jesus  Christ,  it  is  not  hard  to  see  in 
Him  the  whole  creation  so  perfected  in  man  as  its  head 
and  as  heir  of  its  destiny.  And  then  still  less  hard  is 
it  to  see  how  we  could  never  have  known  God  as  Father 
if  He  had  not  so  fulfilled  and  manifested  Himself  as  Son. 
The  hesitation  and  reluctance  to  see  all  God,  and 
highest  God,  not  only  in  the  humanity  but  in  the  deepest 
human  humiliation  of  Jesus  Christ,  is  part  of  the  dis- 
position to  measure  exaltation  by  outward  circum- 
stance and  condition  instead  of  by  inward  quality  and 
character.  We  find  it  impossible  to  recognize  or  ac- 
knowledge God  in  the  highest  act  of  His  highest  attri- 
bute. We  cannot  listen  to  the  thought  that  it  is  with 
God  as  it  is  with  us,  that  it  only  is  with  us  because  it  is 
with  God,  that  self-humiliation  is  self -exaltation.  Not 
only  in  this  way  do  we  refuse  to  know  God  Himself  as 
love,  but  we  refuse  to  understand  the  universe  as  love. 
If  we  would  but  surrender  our  reason  as  well  as  our 
heart  and  will  to  God  in  Christ,  we  should  cease  to 
prate  as  we  do  of  the  mystery  and  the  incomprehensi- 
bility of  things.  We  could  see  how  our  Lord  could  say 
of  the  cross  itself.  Father,  the  hour  is  come.  Glorify 
thy  Son,  that  the  Son  may  glorify  thee.  We  lose  thus 
the  supreme  lesson  of  human  experience:  Not  merely 
to  conjecture  that  somehow  good  is  the  final  goal  of  ill; 
but  to  know  by  actual  trial  just  how  the  supremest  ills 
are  the  necessary  steps  to  the  highest  goods.  As  St. 
Paul  says,  the  cross  of  Christ  is  foolishness  and  a 
stumbling  block  only  to  the  earthly  wise  and  the  self- 


The  Trinity  285 

righteous.  To  them  that  are  saved,  or  are  ever  so 
little  being  saved,  it  is  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  power 
of  God.  To  know  God  in  Jesus  Christ  is  to  know  the 
divine  Logos,  through  whom  alone  God  is  knowable. 
It  is  to  know  him,  not  in  His  inferior  activities  of  phys- 
ical creation,  nor  yet  in  His  higher  capacity  of  lawgiver 
and  law  in  a  world  of  intelligent  reason  and  free  will. 
Rather  is  it  to  know  Him  in  the  act  and  process  of  that 
self-communication  of  love,  grace,  and  fellowship,  which 
is  the  basis  and  condition  of  the  only  real  knowledge. 

The  third  constituent  of  the  Gospel  is  the  fact  in 
itself  of  the  fellowship  of  the  Spirit.  Truly,  our  fellow- 
ship is  with  the  Father  and  with  His  Son  Jesus  Christ. 
The  possibility  or  potentiality  of  such  a  real  unity  and 
community  with  God  must  exist  somehow  beforehand 
in  our  nature  as  spirit,  or  in  the  natural  relation  of  our 
finite  spirits  to  the  Father  of  spirits.  But  the  actuality 
of  spiritual  relation  or  intercommunication  which  we 
call  fellowship  is  no  fact  of  nature  but  an  act  or  inter- 
action of  spirits.  It  is  not  for  us  to  say  how,  theoreti- 
cally, spirit  can  act  upon  spirit;  all  that  we  can  do  is  to 
understand  how,  practically  and  actually,  spirit  does 
act  upon  spirit.  The  most  perfect  expression  of  the 
actual  action  of  the  divine  upon  the  human  spirit  is 
contained  in  the  words.  The  Spirit  beareth  witness 
with  our  spirit,  that  we  are  the  sons  of  God.  Let  us 
assume  the  objectivity  or  truth  in  itself  of  the  eternal 
Fatherhood  —  that  is  to  say,  not  only  Father-relation 
but  Father-spirit,  love,  will,  purpose  or  predestination, 
etc.  —  of  God  in  Himself.  Let  us  also  assume  the 
objective  reality  as  matter  of  fact  of  all  that  we  have 


286  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

claimed  to  have  happened  in  Jesus  Christ:  viz.,  that  in 
Him  as  Logos  God  revealed  Himself  in  the  universe, 
and  that  in  Him  as  Son  God  fulfilled  Himself  in  hu- 
manity. In  other  words,  let  us  assume  that  all  that 
God  is  in  Himself  as  Father  has  evolved  itself  through 
nature  and  man  in  the  universal  and  everlasting  Son- 
ship  realized  in  Jesus  Christ;  God  in  Christ  as  Son  is 
actu  all  that  He  is  potentid  in  Himself  as  Father.  When 
we  have  assumed  all  that  body  of  objective  truth  —  the 
truth  in  itself  of  the  Father  and  the  Son  —  what  remains 
still  to  make  it  the  Gospel  to  ourselves  ?  Undoubtedly 
something  remains.  All  the  reality  in  the  universe  can 
be  no  Gospel  to  us  so  long  as  it  remains  objective,  or 
until  it  enters  into  living  relation  with  ourselves.  Of 
course,  it  can  never  so  enter  unless  there  is  in  us  the 
natural  potentiality  of  entering  into  relation  with  it. 
But  equally  certainly  that  potentiality  can  only  be 
actualized  by  ourselves.  Wliat  is  necessary  within 
ourselves  to  give  effect  to  all  that  is  true  without  us  is  a 
corresponding  response,  or  a  response  of  correspond- 
ence, on  our  part.  That  correspondence  is,  I  repeat,  not 
a  fact  of  natural  relationship,  but  an  act  of  spiritual 
communication  or  self-impartation.  When  the  Spirit 
bears  witness  with  our  spirit,  that  we  are  sons  of  God, 
it  is  not  only  God  who  communicates  the  gracious 
fact,  but  it  is  God  who  awakens  the  humble  and  grate- 
ful response,  and  puts  it  into  our  heart  to  say,  Abba, 
Father.  If  we  cannot  thus  know  God  subjectively  in 
ourselves,  we  cannot  know  God  objectively  in  Jesus 
Christ.  And  if  we  cannot  know  Him  in  His  Word 
and  by  His  Spirit,  we  cannot  know  Him  at  all. 


The  Trinity  287 

As  we  can  know  the  eternal  and  universal  Sonship 
incarnate  in  Jesus  Christ  only  in  the  perfection  of  the 
human  sonship  realized  in  Him  —  in  other  words,  as 
we  can  know  the  Word  or  Son  of  God  only  in  the  man 
Christ  Jesus,  so  we  can  know  the  Spirit  of  God  only  in 
ourselves  or  in  our  own  spirit.  We  cannot  know  any 
spirit  other  than  our  own  otherwise  than  through  a 
certain  oneness  or  identity  of  it  with  our  own.  There 
must  be  both  an  inter-penetration  of  the  two  as  dis- 
tinct and  the  identification  of  them  as  one.  Hence  the 
common  demand  upon  men  to  be  of  one  spirit.  What 
a  subject  of  reflection  then,  and  of  realization  or  actual- 
ization, is  there  for  us  in  the  fact  of  our  fellowship,  our 
participation,  with  the  Father  and  the  Son  in  the  unity 
and  identity  ot  a  common  Spirit.  It  is  in  this  eternal 
Spirit  that  God  Himself  is  God  and  is  Love.  It  was 
in  this  eternal  Spirit  that  the  whole  creation  in  humanity 
ofiFered  itself  without  spot  to  God  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ;  and  in  that  consummate  act  fulfilled  His  rela- 
tion to  it  through  realizing  its  own  relation  with  Him. 
It  is  through  this  eternal  Spirit,  which  is  God's  and 
Christ's  and  ours,  that  we  pass  from  ourselves  into 
Christ  and  through  Christ  into  God. 

We  have  seen  that  there  could  have  been  no  Gospel 
of  God  to  us  except  one  of  objective  Word  and  sub- 
jective Spirit.  All  life  is  defined  as  internal  correspond- 
ence with  external  environment.  We  saw,  I  think, 
long  ago  that  as  it  is  the  function  of  the  divine  Word 
aptare  Deum  homini,  so  is  it  that  of  the  divine  Spirit 
aptare  hominem  Deo.  On  the  same  line  we  may  say, 
that  as  eternal  life  is  given  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ  to  be 


288  The  Gospel  of  the  Person 

received,  so  is  it  given  to  us  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  re- 
ceive the  hfe.  Our  Lord  said  of  the  promised  Spirit, 
that  its  function  should  be  to  bring  us  to  Him.  There 
would  be  nothing  to  which  to  come  if  there  were  no 
objective  fact  and  gift  of  life,  there  would  be  no  coming 
to  the  life  if  there  were  no  subjective  preparing  for  and 
drawing  to  the  life.  How  then  finally  does  the  Spirit 
fit  us  for  Christ  and  fit  us  to  Christ  ?  It  is  the  act  and 
operation  of  the  Spirit,  first,  that  from  the  beginning, 
though  yet  a  very  far  off,  we  can  already  know  Christ 
as  our  own.  That  is  the  power  of  faith,  which  lives 
by  God's  Word  and  takes  what  that  says  as  though  it 
were.  To  faith  Jesus  Christ  is  the  divine,  not  only 
revelation  but  reality  of  itself  from  the  beginning  of  the 
foreknowledge  of  God  in  the  eternity  of  the  past  to  the 
end  of  the  predestination  of  God  in  the  eternity  of 
the  future.  To  faith  Jesus  Christ  is  all  the  eternal  love, 
the  all-sufficient  grace,  the  perfect  fellowship  or  one- 
ness-with-it of  God,  which  is  salvation  ex  parte  Dei  — 
or  salvatio  salvans;  and  no  less  in  Jesus  Christ  the 
perfection  of  our  own  faith,  hope,  and  love,  our  own 
holiness,  righteousness,  and  life,  our  own  death  to  sin, 
and  our  own  life  to  God,  which  is  salvation  ex  parte 
hominis  —  or  salvatio  salvata.  The  Spirit  thus  brings 
us  first  to  a  perfect  correspondence  of  faith  with  the 
fact  of  our  life  of  God  in  Christ.  But  just  because 
faith  means  life,  that  is,  knows,  desires,  wills,  and  in- 
tends it  —  therefore  it  is  it.  God  already  imputes,  as 
He  will  impart,  and  faith  already  appropriates,  as  it 
will  possess,  the  life  which  is  so  believed  in.  So  be- 
lieving in  it  we  have  it  already  in  faith,  and  as  surely 


The  Trinity  289 

shall  have  it  at  last  in  fact.  Attuned  to  Christ  by  the 
anticipatory  spell  of  faith,  hope,  and  love,  we  shall  be 
by  a  natural  process  of  spiritual  assimilation  trans- 
formed into  His  likeness  in  act,  character,  and  life, 
until  coming  to  see  Him  perfectly  as  He  is  we  shall  be 
wholly  what  He  is. 

It  has  not  been  my  object  to  add  to  the  solution  of  the 
speculative  problem  of  the  Trinity.  I  have  only  aimed 
to  show  practically  and  spiritually  that  if  at  all  we  are 
to  know  and  worship  God  in  reality  as  our  God,  we 
must  do  so  as  Christianity  has  always  done  —  in 
Trinity.  We  must  worship  God  in  the  Father,  and 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  Because  God  is,  and 
is  operative  for  us,  not  alone  in  one  but  in  all  these. 
We  cannot  but  distinguish  the  Three;  it  is  only  in  the 
completeness  of  their  threefold  operation  that  we  can 
perfectly  know  the  One. 


fl^antiboofefi  for  t|)e  Clergp 

EDITKD  BY 

The  Rev.  ARTHUR  W.  ROBINSON,  D.D. 

VICAR  OF  ALLHALLOW9  BAKKING  BY  THE  TOWEK 

Crown  %vo.  price  $0.90  net  per  Volume.    By  mail,  $0.96. 

The  purpose  of  the  writers  of  this  Series  is  to  present  in  a  clear  and  attract- 
ive way  the  responsibilities  and  opportunities  of  the  Clergy  of  to-day,  and 
to  otfer  such  practical  guidance,  in  regard  both  to  aims  and  to  methods,  as 
experience  may  have  shown  to  be  valuable.  It  is  hoped  that  the  Series,  while 
primarily  intended  for  those  who  are  already  face  to  face  with  the  duties 
and  problems  of  the  ministerial  office,  may  be  of  interest  and  assistance  also 
to  others  who  are  considering  the  question  of  entering  into  Holy  Orders. 


THE  PERSONAL  LIFE  OP  THE  CLERGY.     By  the  Editoe. 

"  It  is  a  short  book,  but  it  covers  a  wide  field.  Every  line  of  it  tells,  and 
it  is  excellent  reading.  Not  the  least  valuable  part  of  the  book  are  the  ex- 
tremely apt  and  striking  quotations  from  various  writers  of  eminence,  which 
are  placed  in  the  form  of  notes  at  the  end  of  the  chapters.  It  is  emphatically 
a  book  for  both  clergy  and  laity  to  buy  and  study." — Church  Times. 

"  We  are  grateful  for  a  little  book  which  will  be  of  service  to  many  priests, 
young  and  old.  We  need  more  priests,  and  such  a  book  may  well  increase 
their  number  by  explaining  the  nature  of  the  life  to  which  a  vocation  to 
Holy  Orders  calls  men  ;  but  we  need  still  more  that  priests  should  realize 
the  life  to  which  they  are  called  and  pledged  ;  and  this  they  can  hardly  fail 
to  do  if  they  listen  to  Mr.  Robinson's  prudent  and  tender  counsels." — Church 
Quarterly  Review. 

PATRISTIC  STUDY.  By  the  Rev.  H.  B.  Swete,  D.D.,  Regius 
Professor  of  Divinity  in  the  University  of  Cambridge. 

"The  whole  of  the  work  which  this  little  volume  contains  is  most  admir- 
ably done.  SufBcient  is  told  about  the  personal  history  of  the  fathers  to 
make  the  study  of  their  writings  profitable." — Church  Quarterly  Review. 

"  This  is  an  admirable  little  guide-book  to  wide  study  by  one  who  well 
knows  how  to  guide.  It  is  sound  and  learned,  and  crammed  full  of  infor- 
mation, yet  pleasant  in  style  and  easy  to  understand." — Pall  Mall  Gazette, 

THE  MINISTRY  OP  CONVERSION.  By  the  Rev.  A.  J.  Mason, 
D.D. ,  Master  of  Pembroke  College,  Cambridge,  and  Canon  of  Canterbury. 

"  It  will  be  foimd  most  valuable  and  interesting." — Guardian. 

"  Canon  Mason  has  given  a  manual  that  should  be  carefully  studied  by 
all,  whether  clergy  or  laity,  who  have  in  any  way  to  share  in  the  '  Ministry 
of  Conversion '  by  preaching,  by  parochial  organization,  or  by  personal  in- 
fluence."— Scottish  Guardian. 

FOREIGN  MISSIONS.  By  the  Right  Rev.  H,  H.  Montgomery, 
D.D.,  formerly  Bishop  of  Tasmania,  Secretary  of  the  Society  for  the 

'     Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts. 

"  Bishop  Montgomery's  admirable  little  book.  .  .  .  Into  a  limited  compass 
he  has  compressed  the  very  kind  of  information  which  gives  one  an  adequate 
impression  of  the  spirit  which  pervades  a  religion,  of  what  is  its  strength 
and  weakness,  what  its  relation  to  Christianity,  what  the  side  upon  which 
it  must  be  approached." — Church  Quarterly  Review. 


Handbooks  for  the  Clergy — continued. 

Crown  Svo.,  price  $0.90  net  per  Volume. 

THE  STUDY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  By  the  Very  Rev.  J. 
Armitage  Robinson,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Westminster. 
"  The  little  book  on  the  Gospels,  which  the  new  Dean  of  Westminster  has 
recently  published,  is  one  to  be  warmly  commended  alike  to  clerey  and  laity. 
Any  intelligent  person  who  takes  the  trouble  to  work  through  this  little 
Tolume  of  150  pages  will  be  rewarded  by  gaining  from  it  as  clear  a  view  of 
the  synoptic  problem  as  is  possible  without  prolonged  and  independent 
study  of  the  sources." — The  Pilot  (London). 

A  CHRISTIAN  APOLOGETIC.     By  the  Veiy  Rev.  Wilford  L. 
Bobbins,  Dean  of  the  General  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 
"  We  recommend  this  handbook  with  confidence  as  a  helpful  guide  to  those 
clergy  and  teachers  who  have  thoughtful  doubters  to  deal  with,  and  who 
wish  to  build  safely  if  they  build  at  all." — Church  of  Ireland  Gasette. 

PASTORAL  VISITATION.      By  the  Rev.  H.  E.  Savage,  M.A., 
Vicar  of  Halifax  and  Hon.  Canon  of  Durham. 
"This  is  an  excellent  book." — Spectator. 

AUTHORITY  IN  THE  CHURCH.  By  the  Verj-  Rev.  T.  B.  Strong, 
D.D.,  Dean  of  Christ  Church. 
"  This  Is  a  valuable  and  timely  book,  small  in  bulk,  but  weighty  both  in 
style  and  substance.  .  .  .  The  Dean's  essay  is  an  admirable  one,  and  is  well 
calculated  to  clear  men's  minds  in  regard  to  questions  of  very  far-reaching 
importance.  Its  calm  tone,  and  its  clear  and  penetrating  thought  are  alike 
characteristic  of  the  author,  and  give  a  peculiar  distinction  to  everything  he 
writes." — Guardian. 

THE  STUDY  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY.  By  the  Right 
Eev.  W.  E.  Collins,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Gibraltar. 
"  We  think  that  this  is  one  of  the  best  things  on  historical  method  that  has 
ever  been  written.  We  are  sure  that  it  is  the  best  we  have  ever  read.  .  .  .  Wo 
nope  that  the  book  will  be  widely  used ;  it  ought  to  be  given  to  all  under- 
graduates reading  for  lustorical  honours." — Athenaeum. 

RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.  By  the  Rev.  P.  N.  Waggett,  M.A., 
of  the  Society  of  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  Cowley. 
"  The  main  result  of  this  remarkable  book  is  to  present  the  clergy,  for 
whom  it  is  intended  primarily  (but  we  hope  by  no  means  entirely,  i'or  it 
should  appeal  even  more  forcibly  to  the  other  camp,  to  the  professors  than 
to  the  preachers),  with  a  point  of  view." — Church  Times. 

LAY  WORK  AND  THE  OFFICE  OF  READER.  By  the  Right 
Rev.  HuYSHE  Yeatman-Biggs,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Worcester. 
"A  wise  and  valuable  little  book.  Bishop  Yeatman-Biggs  knows  what  he 
is  writing  about ;  he  has  packed  into  a  small  space  all  that  most  people 
could  desire  to  learn  ;  and  he  has  treated  it  with  sense  and  soberness,  though 
never  vnth.  dullness." — Church  of  Ireland  Gazette. 

CHURCH  MUSIC.  By  A.  Madelet  Richardson,  Mus.  Doc, 
Organist  of  Southwark  Cathedral. 
"  Probably  scarcely  a  clergyman  in  the  country  would  fail  to  benefit  by 
Dr.  Richardson's  fifth  and  sixth  chapters  on  the  clergymen's  part  of  the 
church  services.  Throughout  the  little  book  its  earnestness  and  its  thought- 
fuhiess  for  the  reader  command  respect." — Record. 

INTEMPERANCE.     By  the  Right  Rev.  H.  H.  Pereira,  D.D., 
Bishop  of  Croydon. 

ELEMENTARY  SCHOOLS.      By  the  Rev.  W.  Foxley  Norris, 
M.A.,  Rector  of  Barnsley,  and  Hon.  Canon  of  Wakefield. 

CHARITABLE  RELIEF.    By  the  Rev.  Clement  F.  Rogers,  M.A. 
"  One  of  the  most  practical  books  of  the  Series." — The  Living  Church. 

THE  LEGAL  POSITION  OF  THE  CLERGY.     By  Philip  Vernon 
Smith,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  Chancellor  of  the  Diocese  of  Manchester. 


tE^lje  d^rforD  ILibrary  of  practical  tD^lieolog^, 

d  by  tl 

aul's ;  J 

Oxford. 


Edited  by  the  Rev.  W.  C.    E.  Newbolt,  M.A.,  Canon  and  Chancellor  of  St. 
Paul's ;  and  the  Rev.  _Dar  well  Stonk,  M.A.,  Librarian  of  the  Pusey  House. 


Price,  f  1.40  net  per  Volume.    By  mail,  f  1.50 

RELIGION.    By  the  Rev.  W.  C.  E.  Newbolt,  M.A.,  Canon  and 

Chancellor  of  St.  Paul's. 
"  r/i6  Oxford  Library  of  Practical  Theology  makes  a  good  beginning  with 
Canon  Newbolt's  volume  on  religion.  .  .  .  The  publishers  have  spared  no 
pains  in  making  the  appearance  of  the  volume  as  attractive  as  possible  The 
bmding,  type,  and  general  'get  up'  of  the  volume  just  Issued  leave  nothing  to 
be  desired."— G'i(((7-dia/(. 

HOLY  BAPTISM.  By  the  Rev.  Daewell  Stone,  M.A., 
Librarian  of  the  Pusey  House,  Oxford. 
"Fev7  books  on  Baptism  contain  more  thoughtful  and  useful  instruction  on 
the  rite,  and  we  give  Mr.  Stone's  effort  our  highest  approval.  It  might  well  be 
made  a  text-book  for  candidates  for  the  diaconate,  or  at  least  in  theological 
colleges.  As  a  book  for  thought ul  laymen  it  is  also  certain  to  find  a  place."— 
Church.  Timci. 

CONFIRMATION.     By  the  Right  Rev.  A.  C.  A.  Hall,  D.D., 

Bishop  of  Vermont. 
"  To  the  parochial  clergy  this  volume  may  be  warmly  commended.    They  will 
find  it  to  be  a  storehouse  of  material  for  their  instruction,  aud  quite  the  best 
treatise  that  we  have  on  the  subject  it  treats.    It  is  thoroughly  practical,  and 
gives  exactly  the  kind  of  teaching  that  is  wanted."— G4ta?-dia)i. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON   PRAYER.     By 

the  Rev.  Leighton  Pullan,  M.A.,  FeUow  of  St.  John  Baptist's  College. 
Oxford.  ' 

"Mr.  Pullan 's  book  will  no  doubt  have,  as  it  deserves  to  have,  a  large  number 
of  readers,  and  they  wlU  gain  a  great  deal  from  the  perusal  of  it.  It  may  be 
certainly  recommended  to  the  ordinary  laymen  as  by  far  the  best  book  on  the 
subject  available."— Pi7ot  (London). 

HOLY  MATRIMONY.  By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Knox  Little,  M.A., 
Canon  of  "Worcester. 
"Canon  Knox  Little  has  given  us  a  most  exhaustive  treatise  on  Holy  Matri- 
mony written  in  his  best  and  happiest  style,  and  giving  ample  proofs  of  wide 
research  and  deep  study  of  the  various  subjects,  and  the  essential  character- 
istics of  Christian  marriage.  .  .  .  We  would  strongly  advise  the  clergy  to  place 
this  work  upon  their  shelves  as  a  book  of  reference,  while  it  forms  a  complete 
manual  of  instruction  to  aid  them  in  the  preparation  of  addresses  on  the  sub- 
ject."—C7i?M-cft  Bells. 

THE  INCARNATION.     By   the    Rev.  H.   V.    S.   Eck,   M.A., 

Rector  of  St.  Matthew's,  Bethnal  Green. 
"The  teaching  is  sound,  and  the  book  may  be  placed  with  confidence  in  the 
hands  of  candidates  for  Orders  of  inteUigent  and  educated  lay  people  who  de- 
sire fuller  instruction  on  the  central  doctrines  of  the  Faith  than  can  be  provided 
in  sermons."— Guardian. 

FOREIGN  MISSIONS.  By  the  Right  Rev.  E.T.  Churton,  D.D  , 

formerly  Bishop  of  Nassau. 
"We  welcome  Bishop  Churton 's  book  as  an  authoritative  exposition  of  the 
modern  High  Church  view  of  Missions.    It  is  good  for  us  all  to  understand  it. 
thereby  we  shall  be  saved  alike  from  uninstructed  admiration  and  indiscrimi- 
nate denunciation."— C/iurch  Minsionanj  Intelligence.r. 

PRAYER,     By  the  Rev.   Arthur  John    Worlledqe,    M.A. 
Canon  and  Chancellor  of  Truro. 
"We  do  not  know  of  any  book  about  prayer  which  is  equaUy  useful ;  and  we 
anticipate  that  it  will  be  a  standard  work  for,  at  any  rate,  a  considerable 
time.  — Pilot. 


Oxford  Library  of  Practical  Theology. — continued. 

SUNDAY.      By  the  Kev.  W.  B.  Treveltan,  M.A.,  Vicar  of  St. 

Matthew's,  Westminster. 
"An  extremely  nseful  contribution  to  a  difficult  and  important  subject, 
and  we  are  confident  it  will  rank  high  in  the  series  to  which  it  belongs. — 
Guardian. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION.  By  the  Rev.  Leighton  Pul- 
LAN,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  St.  John  Baptist's  College,  Oxford. 
*4t*  This  booh  contains  an  account  oj  the  origin  of  Episcopacy,  the  three  Creeds, 
the  Ancient  Western  Liturgies  and  other  institutions  of  the  Church.  Special  atten- 
tion is  also  given  to  the  early  history  of  Sacramental  Confessicm  and  to  the  principle 
of  Authority  in  the  Church  of  England. 

BOOKS  OF  DEVOTION.  By  the  Rev.  Charles  Bodington, 
Canon  and  Treasurer  of  Lichfield. 
"  Extremely  valuable  for  its  high  tone,  fidelity  to  Catholic  standards,  and 
powerful  advocacy  of  reality  in  private  devotion.  To  those  who  have  never 
studied  the  subject,  it  should  reveal  a  mine  of  devotional  wealth,  yet  to  be 
worked  with  profit  to  man  and  glory  to  God." — Church  Times. 

HOLY     RDERS.     By  the  Rev.  A.  R.  Whitham,  M.A.,  Principal 
of  Culham  College,  Abingdon. 
"  For  the  educated  layman  who  wishes  to  know  what  the  Church  is  teach- 
ing about  the  minstry,  and  what  the  relation  of  the  laity  to  it  really  is,  this 
is  the  best  book  with  which  we  have  m&t."— Pilot  (London). 

THE  CHURCH   CATECHISM  THE   CHRISTIAN'S    MANUAL. 

By  the  Rev.  VV.  C.  E.  Newbolt,  M.  A.,  Canon  and  Chancellor  of  St.  Paul's. 
"  We  think  the  book  should  be  in  the  possession  of  every  teacher  who  can 
afford  it,  and  in  every  Church  Library  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  cannot. — 
The  Reader  and  Layworker. 

THE  HOLY  COMMUNION.  By  the  Rev.  Darwell  Stone, 
M.A.,  Librarian  of  the  Pusey  House,  Oxford. 
"  The  book  meets  a  distinct  want,  and  is  indispensable  to  all  (and  surely 
they  are  very  many)  who  desire  to  have  a  concise  and  well-balanced  sum- 
mary of  the  different  opinions  which  have  been  held  with  regard  to  the 
Holy  Communion  from  the  earliest  days  of  the  Church." — Oxford  Diocesan 
Magazine. 

CHURCH    WORK.      By  the  Rev.   Bernard  Reynolds,   M.A., 

Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's. 
"  What  is  needed  is  a  bright  and  sensiblj;  written  book  which  will  suggest 
topics  for  consideration  and  the  way  in  which  a  Christian  should  view  them. 
The  book  before  us  fulfils  these  conditions.    It  is  stimulating  and  sugges- 
tive, and  that  is  exactly  what  is  wanted." — Gicardian. 

CHURCH  AND  STATE  IN  ENGLAND.      By  the  Rev.  W.   H. 

Abraham,  D.D.,  "Vicar  of  St.  Augustine's,;Hull. 

OUR  LORD'S  RESURRECTION.  By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Sparrow- 
Simpson,  M.A.,  Chaplain  of  St.  Mary's  Hospital,  Hford. 

RELIGIOUS  CEREMONIAL.  By  the  Rev.  Walter  Howard 
Frere,  M.A.,  of  the  Community  of  the  Resurrection,  Examining- 
Chaplaiu  to  the  Bishop  of  Rochester. 

VOLUMES  IN  PREPARATION. 

THE  BIBLE.     By  the  Rev.  Darwell  Stone,  M.A. 

OLD  TESTAMENT  CRITICISM.  By  the  Very  Rev.  Henry 
Wage,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Canterbury. 

NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITICISM.  By  the  Rev.  R.  J.  Know- 
LING,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Divinity  and  Ecclesiastical  History  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Durham.  

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO.,  New  York 


Date  Due 


